First apologies for my poor english wordings.
I’m a new joiner coming from France in this community but not really new as I have subscribed to this lovely forum there are 4 years ago now. Before being interested by our preferred cars I owned a couple of them as Porsche , BMW M3 etc … During one trackday organized by a BMW club in France there are 5 years ago (Dijon-Prenois) it was the first time that I saw an Exige S1 in yellow colour. This was absolutely magic. Moreover having performed very well on the trackday (very fast) the car was beautiful, looking fantastic.
After one month I decided to sell my BMW M3 to buy a Lotus.
At the beginning I was looking for this fabulous Exige S1 car but finally after having read a lot of “bad” things on the VHPD motor I decided to be more realistic in my choice and I bought an Exige S2. This was the worst decision in my life !
Because 5 years after ,3 Lotus owned (Exige S2 , Elise s1 s160, last one Elise s1 111s “sprint”) and a couple of euros spent … today I would be interested to buy my first belove Lotus : the Exige S1.
To be honest there is 1 year ago I decided to start with a project based on an elise s1 111s to drive most of the time on track . The car was in a “new aluminium color”. I decided to do a full car painting as the “old” Elan sprint in yellow and white. I must say that this elise s1 111s is a wonderful car too. The car performs very well and it is also very nice looking now. A lot of upgrades have been made:
Transformed in LHD
Sprint Colour
Hardtop
Nitrons NTR
Toe-links
Big Brakes
Avia , RBF
TMR wheels
PRRT , Laminova
Hurricane
TB 52
Full exhaust Larini and Christopher Neil
and many many others … For the moment the car is weighted only 714kgs (1574 lbs) and should still be lighter after others coming upgrades
As I said previously I would be interested to buy an Exige S1 but I’m not really decided to sell my 111s as the car is giving me a lot of fun ! The best would be to keep my current car and buy the Exige … but it becomes a little bit expensive …
Let me know how I could post some fotos
My name is Raphael. Nice to hear you. and you ?
Regarding your huge number of posting messages I’m assuming that you are responsible (administrator) for this forum ?
Is it your car on the picture above (gulf color) ?
Raphael, yes my car is now Gulf colours. I’ve owned it since new in January 2001, done approx 102k miles incl approx 100 trackdays. Engine/gearbox changed to Honda in 2005 at circa 36k miles.
[quote=jfk][quote=Bu1979]
Regarding your huge number of posting messages I’m assuming that you are responsible ?
[/quote]
Hell no !!
Welcome Raphael [/quote]
[quote=Mr Pesky]Raphael, yes my car is now Gulf colours. I’ve owned it since new in January 2001, done approx 102k miles incl approx 100 trackdays. Engine/gearbox changed to Honda in 2005 at circa 36k miles.
Rob
[/quote]
Ok this is a pure race car now. You know from the other side of the river ( ) there is unfortunately almost any way to drive with this type of car road legally. Nevertheless this is one of the most powerfull association between a Lotus and a Motor (I mean Exige S1 + Honda powered by a compressor).
Since a long time now many of our known “French” motorists was trying to find some solutions to increase the Rover motor power , sometimes successfully , sometimes not … keeping a good reliability which is the most difficult task to do.
Currently one of them is working on my VVC motor to improve the cylinders head capacity. I will keep the original ECU.
In the next coming months if I will not get a chance to find my dream car I will probably go for a solution to increase the whole motor capacity , I mean modify it from 1.8l to 1.9l or 2.0l.
I don’t know if you are familiar with some professionnals in France or Spain , but one of the famous pro is VGK.
I know that in England there are Scholar, DVA ? … maybe many others ?
If the motor swap could be authorized here I will probably change my VVC by a Duratec or a Honda motor. But this is not the case and we must find alternative solutions.
I suppose that the VHPD motor reliability was discussed on this forum frequently. I’m going to try to find these info through the huge postings number
[quote=Bu1979][quote=Mr Pesky]Raphael, yes my car is now Gulf colours. I’ve owned it since new in January 2001, done approx 102k miles incl approx 100 trackdays. Engine/gearbox changed to Honda in 2005 at circa 36k miles.
Rob
[/quote]
I suppose that the VHPD motor reliability was discussed on this forum frequently. I’m going to try to find these info through the huge postings number [/quote]
I would offer that the VHPD is actually (potentially!) a very reliable motor! One of the biggest problems is it was not fully developed, rather a merged assembly of various bits, added to which it is terribly unbalanced… that is a root of many evils!
Those motors that have expired at an early age, when re-built and balanced properly are indeed a wonderfully reliable and sweet sounding motor, so much lighter than anything else too… ‘performance through light weight’ as some chapy once said!!!
[quote=pete757][quote=Bu1979][quote=Mr Pesky]Raphael, yes my car is now Gulf colours. I’ve owned it since new in January 2001, done approx 102k miles incl approx 100 trackdays. Engine/gearbox changed to Honda in 2005 at circa 36k miles.
Rob
[/quote]
I suppose that the VHPD motor reliability was discussed on this forum frequently. I’m going to try to find these info through the huge postings number [/quote]
I would offer that the VHPD is actually (potentially!) a very reliable motor! One of the biggest problems is it was not fully developed, rather a merged assembly of various bits, added to which it is terribly unbalanced… that is a root of many evils!
Those motors that have expired at an early age, when re-built and balanced properly are indeed a wonderfully reliable and sweet sounding motor, so much lighter than anything else too… ‘performance through light weight’ as some chapy once said!!! [/quote]
Pete , absolutely.
This is what I meant. I know that this would be a mess to rely on the original VHPD because of its early age development. But after a proper rebuilt it could be a fantastic motor.
However I have a small question : is it right that the 190bhp upgrade could lead quicker to a VHPD problem compared to the 177bhp ? or is it a combination between this upgrade and a heavy trackdays use ? … .
… today I would be interested to buy my first belove Lotus : the Exige S1.
