My S1 Elige S Build...hopefully 480bhp/ton.....assembly mode

General Owners Cars
21

pinched some bits and bobs off seloc to update this, the car weighs 702kg with no fuel and I know of at least 35kg that can come off it.

I have to order a EP Lightweight engine mount and an adjustable lower mount aswell so calm my engine movement down so ill get some at the same time.

Got it home tonight after new exhaust, on idle it seems the same as before, on full throttle it sounds awesome, proper k series angry sound, dont think it will pass on drivebys but luckily I can adjust the angle of the tailpipe away from the sensors now, plus I have an extra external bolt on muffler for track days, you would say the same at time attack but actually listening to the cars there, there is no way they are only 105db on full boost, some of them you can hear on the other side of the circuit.

Here are a couple of pics

I tried to make a box to contain the ecu but in the end it was just a pain in the arse, so I decided to fit it to the carbon panel with velcro, its lightweight, acts as a dampener against vibrations and is easy to get to, i then velcro’d the relay box and map sensor onto the ecu.

We had to trim the panel to make the box fit as its set at an angle to be able to reach the clam outlet, I still have to remove all the inner part of the exhaust area which will also give me more room around the exhaust.

I have a little straight piece for when im on the road, but wanted to try the elbow to see how it fits, looks a bit weird but i suppose I wont be using it much, my girlfriend said it looks like a rats tail and now is calling it a rat car

Pretty close to straight through the system, will be interesting if there are any gains on the dyno




Put my rear lights and wiring in, actually the easiest job on the car by far, why cant it all be this simple!!

Least now when im testing things up and down my street theres less chance of someone running in the back of me!

When the clam comes back off for when we remove the roof to mould in carbon I still have quite alot of cut out of it, when its done it will look the same as this

bolted on my old diffuser tonight, would sound like a simple task but it was anything but, started on it at 7pm, didnt finish till 11pm!!

Turns out that that it looks like the diffuser on the exige has different hole locations than the elise one, ie the holes are much further in on the exige body(about 25mm) but the clam sticks out much further, must be about 50mm

Which meant I had to lie in the dark with a torch in my mouth while I trimmed a 20mm strip of bumper off all the way along on the inside so I could get the panel fixings on, the battery dremel made things interesting!!

At least now I have everything all lined up and bolted on, I wont be running this diffuser for long, just need to keep it to use as a template for where the holes are, ill be making one in a few months that extends another 200mm in length and another 100mm wider each side, that way when I seal in the area around the wishbones I will be able to make use of all the air travelling under the car, same as the gogreen car in the previous post.

Olly from phoenix was kind enough to lend me a roof clamp for a while as I dont have one, but being big and heavy and I would have to give it back to him anyway I decided to make one in carbon fibre, which since they dont seem to be that common or easy to buy in carbon or GRP ive decided to offer them to members looking to either save weight or if they have just bought a hardtop.

So start off with waxing the part with mould release wax then glueing on some edges

Nice layer of gelcoat

to make it stiffer we used some offcuts of carbon fibre as the first layer

We then added a layer of fibreglass and a foam core

another layer of fibreglass and start the last layer of carbon fibre

All done, just got to wait till thursday night to take the clamp out of the mould

Well released the clamp from the mould, strangley very easily, but then I did put alot of wax on it first

Cleaned it up and got my mate to put it in his work oven today, it needs to stay in there for a couple of days to make sure its cured all the way through.

We can then get the carbon and kevlar and make our first clamp

Also I ordered my lightweight engine mount and adjustable lower mount so that will save a bit of weight, another thing that cant rust and stop my engine moving around so much, the aerocatches are on the way also

Just need to check the bank account to see if ive got enough for my wing now

Manage to finish work a bit earlier today so started on making a splitter.

This is basically a template as my mate has decided we have to make one out of carbon fibre due to the weight so if I mess anything up it wont matter to much.

So its bolted with the 9 standard M5/M6 bolts onto the crash structure to start us off, then I added 2 tie bars at the sides as they seemed to be the most flexable part(i would have liked to have run longer tie bars but didnt have any)

need to buy some longer bolts for the ones that go into the splitter as theres not enough thread left to fully screw into the tiebar while having washers both sides so ill be off to b&q tomorrow to get some longer ones

I had to trim the chin to allow for the tiebars and also the edge of the chin would hit the poitn where the crash structure touches the splitter

Put 2 more tiebars into the crash structure to stiffen the leading edge up, though on the carbon version ill angle them out a little further rather than straight down as they are now

So the plan tomorrow if I get time is take the car up the 70mph dual carriage way, friend in another car filming just to see if we are getting any bending anywhere, to be fair if it does bend at least ill ive made it for free and its only bolted on short term.

Its slowly starting to look like a real racer!!

Got back in after and opened my boxes from Eliseparts to find my lightweight engine mount, adjustable mount and new headlight covers.

I also ordered a lightweight crank pulley but then later questioned is it like the stock one with 7 grooves, turns out it only has 5 grooves and since i run a 6 groove belt because of my supercharger it turned out I cant use it, luckily I called back before they had shipped it out.

I might do the engine mounts this weekend if I have time and motivation.

My carbon clamp mould has also now fully cured from the oven so ill be trimming that ready to lay the carbon in

Also fitted my engine mount today, thank god I have long fingers as its not easy to get your hands in the right position, so hopefully worth it, its always nice to get rid of something rusty!




We also weighed all the parts that came off and the new parts that went back on and there was a 1.737kg weight saving so not quite 2kg I hoped for but not far off, just have to see how rough it is to live with day to day.

will fit the lower mount tomorrow if I have the time, then it should be nice and solid

Also fitted my rear top brake light, that was a real pain getting it out of the 111s clam as you couldnt get your hands at anything, much easier on an exige

Then marked up my carbon sheet ready to be cut out to replace my rear window, once cut out all bond it in so hopefully it wont sound as noisy in the cabin as before.

finally been working on a design for the rear wing and confirming all the measurements on the car and the wing itself, im following the same lines as others have done only my connections to the longerons will be made of carbon rather than normal ali
So when done will effectively look like this

Bit of an update, fitted my rear numberplate which only took a moment, the biggest thing I had to do today was fit the adjustable engine mount.

The only way it would ever take 30mins would be if you were on a ramp with the undertray and diffuser already off!!

Trying to unbolt them with a spanner and socket set was getting me nowhere.

After 20mins of pulling as hard as I can I eventually got the bolt to turn that is closest to the rear then had to put a 19mm spanner onto the nut on the otherside while a socket on the other, not sure how people do it when they dont have arms as long as mine!

Next came the bolt closer to the sump…dont know what idiot put that on there but they never had intention of anyone ever being able to take it off!! it took a blow torch and a impact gun to get it to come off, which again is not easy to do lieing on your back looking up.

so the reason for the post is in regards again to weight saving, I weighed both the EP mount kit which came out at 495grams and the original which came to 850grams so 355g saving

So overall as well as stiffening my engine up I saved a total of 2092g which is never a bad thing.

Took it for a drive up and down the road and you can feel that stiffer engine mount, the cover that sits on top of my stack dash now vibrates!

Do I feel that it makes a difference, when the engine doesnt move as much under throttle compared to before but I dont feel it has made the throttle responce to anything any sharper.

Have people felt a difference from it?

Took it for a little spin up the road today, just to check everything works, all seemed ok until my indicator lense flew off then got run over by the car behind which was a nice feeling so looks like im spending £50 on a new one :frowning:

While I was out I put some fuel in to get it off refill so I could get it weighed, so with 15ltrs(12.75kg) of fuel on board it weighs 710kg, now i need to add the headlights and engine cover which is 5kg combined, so this puts me at 703kg without fuel onboard which is pretty decent since ive got that super heavy ply splitter on the front and about 22kg of supercharger kit, since i know already of 36kg that can come out it looks like im on target!

Made a little progress tonight as I would like to take it up the cat and fiddle on sunday for the meet

Fitted the carbon panel to replace my rear screen, only thing I need to get hold off is either some foam or a door rubber to go on the top edge of the carbon where it meets the roof to give me a good seal.

Also my aero style catches arrived, came quicker than I expected.

Never done anything like this before so first thing I did was make some brackets out of 1mm ali, I will replace them with carbon, but I can use these as templates while I learn what to do.

Scared myself silly making the first hole into the engine cover thinking ill be calling equinox for another one as ill mess it up, good thing about making the brackets in ali was that when my bits didnt line up i just bent the bracket so that it fitted, once we got the first side fitted and checked I measured from each edge on the cover and duplicated it on the drivers side.

I then attached it with both and success, seems to work well!!

Tomorrow ill put the final one at the bottom which will finish it all off

22

My wife now says the stuff I store or do in the house is acceptable considering what you get up to in the kitchen :smiley:

With regards the ECU, are you sure just using Velcro is the way to go? It’s going to get very hot there and I wouldn’t have thought the adhesive will be suitable for high temperature. I’d also worry the heat may effect it, it looks bloody close to the exhaust :open_mouth:

The Rat Cars looking pretty fricking cools tho… :sunglasses:

23

yeah i’d move the ecu to behind the passenger seat

24

Fitted my headlights, indicators all the wiring and gave my temporary splitter a quick coat of paint so it doesnt look to daft

Also put some pre-preg carbon into my mould for my roof clamp, made it 12 layers of carbon with a piece of kevlar over where the bolt holes go, it will be that stiff the only way we will have problems is if the big head washers manage to pull themselves out of the roof.

Just got to get it over to my friends house now to make my turbo manifold

decided to take my car into work today, i knew it was losing a little bit of oil from the seals in the supercharger but cruising into work wouldnt really effect that…big mistake, driving home tonight, was about 1/4mile from home the seals let go in a massive way and flooded the engine with oil, que filling the entire road in smoke and people having to stop behind me because they cant see!

Got home and took the plugs out, pulled the inlet off and there was about 300ml of oil in the upper inlet manifold and a big pool of oil in each lower inlet manifold runner.

Took a photo of the outlet of the chargecooler and you can see a big pool of oil in there.

So looks like the car isnt mobile anymore and the turbocharger setup has got to be done asap to be able to us it

I popped out my carbon roof clam out of the mold today, and trimmed it with an angle grinder(not super neat but doesnt matter to me) and drilled my 3 holes into it.


Its massively stiffer than the fibreglass one I took off, so shouldnt be going anywhere at speed.

Weighed an original one and it weights 1kg, this one is about twice as thick and weights 700grams, looks quite smart, doesnt have the smooth side on the side you see as its prepreg carbon, but better the fibreglass one.

To check everything is ok ive now removed the supercharger and ran the engine up to temperature a few times to clear the oil out.

Had to bodge it a little bit by just cutting the flange off the pipe so that I could get the vehicle running

Turns out with the supercharger, all the pulleys, brackets and belts it comes to around 10kg, a lighter crank pulley a change to turbo, pulling out the oil cooler and lines and moving from a 4-2-1 to a turbo manifold should save me about 5kg I would have thought.

Also getting close to road legal now, just need to cut the rear clam out properly to get the air in and out and also sort out the fog/reverse

Once the turbo is on, then its wheels, rear wing and we are nearly there, there is light at the end of the tunnel

25

The stripping down ready starts for the turbocharger setup.

First pulling out faithful MSPaint to get my head around manifold design, it wont be an equal length but ive tried to minimise the differering runner lengths.

rear clam off, exhaust out

Might send this to the bodyshop to have the rear sections cut out neatly

This is where the car is kept while the manifold/downpipe is made

Lots of room down there with the janspeed 421 out

Schedule 40 stainless steel, very heavy but should never crack so if i decide to take it properly racing(30mins+) I have the reliability I need

Again ive been looking at pulling some more weight out of it while its off the road having a manifold built.

So later on this week ill be going to fetch a couple of seats, should give me more lateral support and will save 5kg per seat so 10kg total

Also the stock metal fuel cap decided to munch its insides so i decided to get a lightweight replacement.

I decided to get a non-locking plastic one because time attack is a glorified qualifying and if theres only a few mins left and ive not a lap fast enough I can just pull in the pit lane for a quick ‘splash and dash’ which now means my mate with the fuel wont have to mess around trying to lock and unlock it.

also got my scales out to weigh them

so I started with this 307g

700×535 27.1 KB

then put this on which only weighs 53g, so 254g saving

Doesnt sound like much, but if I keep ticking away at the little things It will be interesting on how much weight Ill be able to pull off, ill be going through the vehicle front to back and replacing all steel bolts/washers/nuts with aluminium, again the same with any brackets i can find as I have a precision engineering shop next to where I work and will make me anything I want.

What ive learnt up to yet is that I wont win any power wars with the guys im up against, infact even with my car being so light i think im going to loose a fair bit of time down the straights, so What I need to do now is look at trying to be more effiecent with what ill use, so the usual things like running as low level as fuel as I can get away with, so theres less fuel slopping around in the corners(big baffles in fuel tank) and what ive done this week is take my gear mechanism apart and raised it up by about 3inchs, this means its closer to the steering wheel so theres less time me moving my arm for changing gear, and ill be buying a lighter gearknob that is also white, so make it easier to see in my preferal vision, as currently its metal in a metal environment, so again theres less chance of me taking my eyes off the road to look for the gearknob

26

Little update, been busy with work and holidays so havent done much on it.

But the turbocharger arrived today

T3T4 with internal wastegate, rated at 420bhp, v-band turbine housing, quite a large turbo to comp wheel ratio which will induce a late boost threshold but my supercharger made 10psi at 5200rpm, so anything better than that will be a bonus, ill only be running around 1bar so should be about 300-320bhp if I can keep the inlet temps down.

Manifold 90% done, just need to order some pipe for the downpipe now


And my new wide flat floor with tabs for plastic skirts(ala late 70s f1)and diffuser setup is nearly made, its 120cm wide and about 95cm long so hopefully will have a decent effect and if working correctly with my splitter will help give the front end some much needed downforce.

Just got back in from fetching my new race seats.

The stock current seats weigh 9.5kg including the runner.

These only weigh 3.02kg each, now ill need to make some ali frames, but that should be less than 1kg so theres a combined weight saving for 10kg.

Even though its a race car ill need to run both seats for the time attack rules.

Seem to hug my hips well, I wouldnt want to put any more weight on though else they would be uncomfy, would have liked a bit side support on my upper back but thats what the harnesses are for

Also sorted out my new rear wing, took a while to find a supplier who could make my what I wanted who wouldnt charge an arm and a leg, should be with me in a couple of weeks

Having a 250mm cord, 1750mm length and 300mm end plates, so will look similar to this one, only bigger

27

I am enjoying your build thread, and Davy Crockett would have loved that cow catcher you have fitted on the front :clap:

28

Are you going to put in a heat shield and the firewall and also between the exhaust and the CV boot, it looked a bit close in one photo?

You could stick some padding on the seat to give you more support where you want it. That’s the most important part of the car - your seat and harness.

29

Seats and Ali runners will save loads. Keep chipping away mate, loving the weight saving :wink:

30

I wont have that problem from now on as im going turbo, as we are going to run the downpipe over the top of the gearbox and subframe so will be no where near, only really an issue if I kept it supercharged, but I just didnt think a rotrex supercharger was worth the money.

To be honest im not really a small chap(6ft3 16st) so I complete fill the seat and dont think I could squeeze any padding in if I tried, I suppose if I loose a couple of stone then that would sit me lower in the seat and might my sides a little more support

yep its not a bad size, its all designed for a purpose though, wait to you see my giant canards(100mm wide) that will connect to the splitter with end fences, that way any downforce they do produce will be applied to the splitter with is a fixed surface instead of risking just bending over on my super thin front clam

31

making my wing and ordered my ali for the wing uprights, the wing will sit roughly inline with the roof, maybe a couple of cm above

I would have gone wider, but I have a narrow driveway and if it sits to far out from the rear arches I might scrap it on the wall

32

Knock the bloody wall down! Your wing is more important man! :smiley:

33

Mini update,

Sat down last night and designed my aluminum subframes.

The good thing is, that they can be reversed to allow people who bond big nut fasterers into the seeat rather than simply drilling and bolting it through.

Ive designed them so the seat is touching the rear bulkhead and the underneath is touching the floor.

This will give me maximum space, keep the centre of gravity as low as possible(I am the heaviest item in the vehicle) and keep my knees away from the steering wheel.

Done some calculations and they should weigh 0.35kg each so overall the seats are a big weight saving.

Pretty simple to make, we have a local waterjet company who will cut them and then just bend them in the bender

34

Just one thing I’d say. If you’re building the car to comply with proper regs and for your own safety etc, I assume you know that ally seat mounts have to be made from 5mm thick material. It’s 3mm for steel. They are getting pretty keen in the Time Attack paddock now too.

35

yep, did some reading on MSA regs etc for subframes as I didnt want to make them out of 3-4mm just to save 100g and not be allowed on track.

The design actually includes the thickness of 5mm ali to work out how high to make the sides and holes

I also looked at steel in 3mm but it would be 0.15kg heavier and its something else in the car that might rust.

What I found interesting is there arnt really any laws regarding the actual seats themselves, that they have to be of a certain thickness, or a certain strength or even how you mount them to a subframe.

But then I suppose when you crash head on you should not expect your seat to take any of the strain, thats what your harnesses are for.

Theres trying to save weight and then theres going to far.

Even though 670kg is achieveable, secretly 640kg is my final goal for the car but thats a few years down the line and i didnt want to start shouting its going to be that until i do all the easy parts first

36

I’m away right now so can’t post up the mounts I drew up and had made. They are 5mm, they have a little more meat on them though. Rather than have those long stems to the seat mounts from the base, maybe just go up 90 degrees at the back as you already have done then join the top of each rad with one stright line cut and another to the very front. Not much of a weight pen and a load stronger.

37

Having a few BB issues in the sun lol but I know it depends on the type of seat you are using. I use Mog.

38

Hi Jonny, are you saying a bar from one ‘post’ to the other to strengthen it?


Picked up my wing yesterday from MVS Racing in Wales, really nice people and seemed interested with that im building.

Shes a big old girl at 1750mm long

They did make me a set of end plates but after more discussion it was decided that they werent going to be big enough, so are making me some 600mm long ones(500mm below, 100mm above wing)

This should really give the wing a fair chunk of downforce with I can tune with angle.

One of the reasons I went down there instead of having them post it to me is to take my front clam.

They are now going to custom make me 4 custom canards to go on the front end, we marked up where they are going to go and made a few decisions about angles, so I hope they do the job, basically I want a massive chunk of downforce on the front end because its always easier to add downforce to the back than it is the front.

sticks out from the clam at the front by 20mm then runs straight out to 100mm past the arch at which point the splitter endplate connects to it(the splitter sticks out by 100mm at the edges

They should look like these when they are done.

They have 90* angles at each end so that I can use a piece of carbon as an end fence so that all downforce is pushed onto the splitter rather than risking them ‘folding over’ or pulling out of the thin clam.

39

No no not at all and I won’t be home for a while… Bollox! It’s more a case of leaving the Ali in. Home in two weeks so will post it up, what seat are you using?

40

Will be fetching my front clam back next weekend with my new monster canards.

Also finished my new diffuser and undertray.

tried my best to clean up the air around the rear wheels so ive come up with this solution, when the car is jacked up, only where the wishbone meets the upright would it touch, so I cut around for it, as you can see it now gives a better route for the air to hit the diffuser, after this picture was taken we added the vertical skirts so they will sit 40mm off the floor front to rear.

Excuse the rusty wishbones, they will come off for powdercoating and the toelink kit will be added.

Here you can see the size of the diffuser, if you look at the holes in it, the ones to each furthest end bolt to the end of the clam, so anything after that sticks out, it extends about 400mm out the back, with the stakes bent at 7 degrees. Should look pretty mad and help give me a larger lower pressure area, ill be also using tie bars at the end of it to attach to the body to keep it stiff.


Because of the giant wing and diffuser I was concerned a little bit that even with the 100mm splitter, big canards and ground effect skirts I might not be able to balance the front with enough downforce.

One issue the exige has is that the front of the car past the wheels is pretty small, theres not alot of overhang so your limited in how much downforce you can make in that area.

Luckily because I have no restrictions and picking up on what Jamwill said Im remaking my splitter while also saving weight by moving from ply to carbon(saves around 1kg)

Now this piece of carbon ive got it 100mm narrower but im going to make it extend out from the front of the clam by 200mm and also make it square rather than round to maximise surface area, it should be up by about 70%
The only thing im going to have a look at on monday is the wishbone angles on the front on monday with the car jacked up to see if it can run the splitter wider and further back instead of narrowing down where it bolts to the vehicle(hence ill use more of the carbon i have and have a longer narrower section) that should help the vehicle all around as less high pressure from the front wheelwell messing within my downforce, basically try and mirror what ive done with the rear of the vehicle.

Because the very long lengths of my diffuser/splitter i have ordered 2m of M6 threaded bar and a pack of 10 ‘Long Nuts’ these will allow me to run my tie bars as long as I want so even though the parts are very long, they will be very stiff and wont move.

Painted my diffuser and undertray today, look alot better black and should be more stealthy

Also finished my design of the front splitter, did some measuring and realised I can run it another 10cm wider on the inside of the wheels so should hopefully help a little against the bottleneck you make the air pass though from the wide splitter.

You can see the comparison between my old ply on and the new one, I doesnt look it, but theres a massive increase in surface area on the carbon one, yet it is 0.6kg lighter.

Fitted my diffuser and splitter and flat undertray tonight.

Looks pretty extreme but then once the rear clam is on you wont see about 30cm of it

Ended up using some threaded bar and long nuts to extend my tiebars, seems to work a treat and allows me to alter the diffuser angle(ill be attaching tuffs to make sure the air stays attached) ill also add another 7 bolts between the clam and the diffuser to make sure its super stiff

I then fitted my carbon splitter, it does touch the anti roll bar when the car is jacked up so I might need to trim it a little, but apart from that it seems to do the job.

Just need to fetch my front clam so I can work out how wide I can run my tiebars without interfering with the clam(my old splitter was stiff in the middle and wobbly at the sides as the front tiebars were to close together)

All being well ill have my front and rear clams back on by mid next week, add wing, wheels and we are almost there!!