To SC or not to SC!

The Oily Bits Engine Swaps
21

Is this a 340R or an exige - who did the conversion or is it Riccardos black exige?

An S1 Exige.
Not Ricardo’s black lemon (that is sitting at a friend’s place) from Mc carthy or who ever…

The conversion is number 008 from MSC. Andy is a nice guy but helpless for me as I live so far. And everytime i phone it is uselee. When I send parts it takes at least two months and 10 phone calls and 10s of emails before I can hope to see them back.
I am in the process of having driveshafts specially built for the car from a company that does only transmissions, as well as all other parts I am changing. Another problem is engine alignment that is no good.
The gearbox has been open before i bought the car, nobody told me. Problem: the car started shaking from the back when decelerating, real shaking. The LH and RH driveshafts had been inverted (they are not the same lenght, just few millimeters difference) previously. The gearbox has been previously open and a small joint after the diff has been withdrawn (advertently or on purpose I don’t know). Result : the diff has started to “eat” both “casing”. Had to buy a new gearbox as cases were not available from Honda and almost same price (taking account of hourly rate).
I am not good at mechanic at all, but my mechanic is. He says the car is a nightmare…
This is the usual view I have of the car (sorry for bad quality)
[image]> http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/3874/734g0019st6.jpg> [/image]

I am really angry at the car, although the very few times it did work it was a weapon on track and I simply loved it.

Is that Carstens old car?

Shame matey. I’m sure if you were in the UK, MSC would have rectified all the problems for you.

I have MSC No.21 Charged S2 Conversion.

22

Damn…strange that the problems weren’t seen when it was NA ?

Not really the SC adds a whole new dimension to the shafts, mounts and heat …

23

Diego: yeesssssssssssss, French riviera sun (and roads)

Is that Carstens old car?

It definitively is, Pleyer. Carsten had the Honda NA installed, I have all the bills from MSC. Then nothing was changed on the car until [censored] happened. I am pretty sure MSC would have done something to help if I lived in UK. Shame is i am too far… I am not saying they are not sympathic, always very nice over the phone. Just that they seem not to “care” as I always have to beg for weeks to get a part or an email back. Helpless.
I am a sort of guinea pig for the honda conversion here in France. Lots nad lots of friends from club lotus france and others are looking closely at my problems. Lots of hem wanted to change the engnes but none of them now is moving forward anymore.
I am really desperate about getting the car back on the road… one day

24

Shame matey. I’m sure if you were in the UK, MSC would have rectified all the problems for you.

I think so also Pleyer. But it is why I told MSC when I bought the car from Carsten: “listen Andy, you did the honda NA conversion, I want YOU to do the SC add on as you know the car and everything. But pls as I live so far, keep the car, test it, re test it and so on so that everything is fine”. The car stayed for 1.5 months there…
I drove the car back to Cannes, then had one track day (had a big oil cooler fitted by MSC just for security reasons) and then bing, car started to shake all over the place. Now the car does not shake anymore after having inverted the driveshafts, changed the gearbox, all the bearings, engine mounts, and so on. But the tripod exploded the other day… again and again. Nightmare still goes on. And i am getting tired (my banker too)…

25

So you drove all the way to France and no Vibration and then a track day and got vibration and cause was becuase one driveshaft is 1mm longer than the other

So swopping them around, doing nothing else - stopped the vibration, that you didnt have when first picked up.

The inner Tripodes are different Left to right so the shafts have to be taken apart to make that kind of change …

I dont get it … sorry

26

andy, as I said, mechanic is like Chinese for me. In french it is already hard for me, so in English it becomes a nightmare.
Story is, the car shaked (like a resonning vibration, no noise) when decelerating and/or turning right corners (ie weight and constraints on RH left wheel). After changing bearings and loking at everything (the driveshaft stayed for 2 months with MSC, coming back as the left from here), decision was made to open the gearbox, the last thing that was not changed). After oening, something was missing that killed the casings (will post tomorrow a scan of part missing in the box). Changed the gearbox with a brand new one from Jas motorsport in milan, Italy. I must say my mechanic races on Civic Type R so he knows quite well the engines, shafts, gearbox, and so…
After fitting the new box still the same vibration problem
The mechanic finally remebered that he had one day same kind of problem and that the left and right driveshafts are not the same lenght, he inverted them and bingo, no more vibration. What he found is that the longest one was on the left while it had to be on the right. Thus, with time decay and use of the car (Carsten and me) the shaft ended up (on left) knocking on the “bol” (sorry do not know the english name) thus the vibration on right corners.
Since then no more vibrations. But the right transmission now (tipod) had a problem. He says that until we cannot rearrange engine alignment with shafts better than they are, I will have problems. So now i am at the point of ordering driveshafts made on purpose, realign engine, etc…

This is what I undestood. Again I might be wrong as even in French i am totally lost with what has been done, what has to be done next
Of course the mechanic could be:
1 dishonnest but he is a god friend of mine and works night and day on the car, even on WE to help.
2 stupid and incompetent, I doubt it seeing the cars he has in charge from other owners.

I am not charging MSC on my problems (at least trying not to), just saying that if it was to be done again, I would not do it.
And so would not all my friends around here. Lots of people are now looking at Duratec, Audis or honda through Komotec in germany. More expensive but better job and no hassles.

Hope I was clear enough, sorry for being dumb in mechanic

27

Max

Please don’t apologise for your English - it is very, very good.

Don’t know what else I can say to you, except good luck, & hope it’s sorted soon

28

Thanks very much Mr Pesky
I am so depited about the car that I do not even bother to call my friend to “put pressure” on him… Just waiting for the beast to be back… one day.

29

Drive shafts and engine mounts are always the issues with these conversions, especially in SC guise.

Send Plans motorsport an email and I’m sure they’ll advise you on the best way to minimise these problems. They now have plenty of experience with my car!

www.plansmotorsport.com

I’m sure once you’ve sorted it you’ll be happy with the conversion.

30

If you have the money, get the SC. S1 Exige with SC Honda is fantastic car.

31

Send Plans motorsport an email and I’m sure they’ll advise you on the best way to minimise these problems. They now have plenty of experience with my car!

Kinetic - do you know what they have done to your car? Do they actually offer new “upgraded” components or is it just a fettling job?

32

Hmm…
Just read thru this thread and having owned the car Max is having problems with pisses me off a bit. I dont know what the warrenty issue is right now, but it does raise the question what happens with the 12 month warranty if you add the SC… does it extend 12 months again or what. I am a bit fecking dissapointed with MSC for not providing some help with this as if it had been me, I would have dumped the car at their front step and told them to sort it. But again, I want to be careful as I have not been privy to any of the communication between the parties…so will not take any sides.
I sincerely hope that Max is not getting the run around purely because he is so far away. Max is a genuinly nice guy who isnt new to Lotus, having seen some of his 340Rs, race prepped and all…

I now have another S1 Exige as I regretted selling my other one and am now looking at engine conversions again. Luckily for me, I have other installer options, as customer back up is important to me… and Maxs issues have me reconsidering where I go to get my Link-Up kit installed.

33

Luckily for me, I have other installer options, as customer back up is important to me… and Maxs issues have me reconsidering where I go to get my Link-Up kit installed.

Carsten - I hope you will be able to share your decision-making process with us all on here, as I think may people are genuinely interested in these conversions.

Would a different installer of the kit make any real difference to the actual problems, if the issue is with the parts in the 1st place?

With MSC being one of the 1st, if not the 1st into this particular conversion kit then you would expect them to be well ahead of the competition in undertaking it to a high standard.

34

Completely agree with people wanting to hear about others’ experiences…

Quite happy to continue with my K series for the moment, but when the time comes, it’d be nice to know which route to go and who to choose…

It seems very difficult to weed out the real truth from all the rumours from just reading forums though…

35

Ok… first of all, I want a honda again in my exige and as of yet havent decided which route to go. MSC have the benefit of having installed a very large amount of these things and are fairly local to me… Andy went thru ALOT of grief to sort out some fitting problems I had with my fancy 295mm AP discs and I cannot fault him on that one. (The AP disc caliper-spacer saga is for another thread… but sufice to say… never again… I am getting standard size AP’s all around this time).
I like Max, he is a nice guy, we had a few drinks in Nice whilst sorting details out and he endured a tropical downpour in a race prepped 340R to get home again…so he is as mad as the rest of us. So hence I am annoyed/worried why this has gone wrong. Somebody higher ranking than MSC (friend of mine) in the Honda Hierachy has taken note of this and will be getting in touch with Max to see WTF is going on.
On a conversion of this level, I damn well expect customer support to maintain smooth running of the car. Obviously a fair view must be taken from all sides (race track abuse is one thing etc…) but I clearly remember Max telling them to completely shake down the car before he drove south, so am annoyed they seemed allegedly to ignore him as soon as he was out of the country.
But as we all know, in this specialized field, you live and die on your reputation so I dont want to say whether or not I will go back to MSC or take some other approved installer.I dont mind sharing my reasons later when I finally decide… SC or not SC is another consideration.

But it is a potential pitfall if you dont live near a helpful hand when problems arise… but then again in this internet age with overnight fedex deliveries, this is no excuse.

Suffice to say, I now have a clean beautiful Black S1 Exige in the garage and am slowly making a plan for it.

36

Kinetic - do you know what they have done to your car? Do they actually offer new “upgraded” components or is it just a fettling job? [/quote]

Not so much new components but more an ongoing ‘fettling job’ as you say. High temperature grease for the drive shafts has definitely made a big difference to their longevity and they’ve made some mod’s to the engine mounts which were really inadequate for the stresses endured by a race car. Still not totally sorted but getting there I think.
I’m sure Graham will be working on offering some upgraded parts in the none too distant future knowing him

37

Thanks for the reply - it would be good to get the details posted up if/when Plans have it sorted.

38

but I clearly remember Max telling them to completely shake down the car before he drove south, so am annoyed they seemed allegedly to ignore him as soon as he was out of the country.

I understand where you’re coming from, but MSC may well have given the car a solid test, and from what have read/understand, the problems didn’t manifest themselves until after a long trip back to the south of France & some track work.

I think Maidstones take on too much work for their own good at times, as I was promised my conversion (SC # 28) in a time of 2 to 3 weeks, & it took 6 - but the quality of work was superb.

The car has done over 1500 miles post conversion, and apart from a lunched S/C belt early on, hasn’t missed a beat.

Max- Hope you get your car sorted soon mate, and 10/10 for your superb English!

39

I will be at Cadwell next Sunday, and although I do not have an Exige, I have two of the earliest S1 Elises. Both have new JDM engines converted by Rich at BLiNK, one three years ago, 145,000 miles on it, 50,000 with the Honda, and one last year.

Firstly I would like to praise Rich for his backup. Even after two years he was still sending me tripod CV joints, drive shafts, even complete assemblies for free. Most of this was not down to unreliability, just type of useage, numerous Trackdays and also the Scottish Sprint and Hillclimb Championships, which I was leading until I went into hospital. Biggest killer was tyre warming until I realised the effect it could have on the drive train, and of course standing starts.

That car, N1 TUT has been off the road for a few months having a mechanical rebuild and new bodywork, so I bought a virtually identical car, now N3 TUT, ordered a Jackson Integra DC5 S/C kit direct from the States, and fitted it a couple of months ago.

I already loved the Honda engine anyway, 8600, IVTEC, bullet proof, good fuel consumption, but the S/C has transformed it. Had problems initially with shredded S/C belts, but this was due to fitting the manual tensioner in the kit, and the pulley being slightly out of line. Went back to the auto tensioner with a slight mod, and that cured it.

The power delivery with the S/C almost makes it too easy to drive. On the road it is there all the time, and 6th gear is used most of the time once moving. On the track it is 4th and 5th, with 3rd just for hairpins.

Tut Towers 2007 was last weekend, starting on Friday with 4 hours open pit lane at Knockhill, followed by 800 or so miles on Saturday and Sunday on some of the best and quickest roads in Scotland, most of it in sunshine and blue skies.

The car never put a foot wrong, and even after 8 years with an Elise, never failed to put a smile on my face.

Bottom line on whether to S/C or not for me, is that there is no way that I would take it off.

Cheers

tut.

ps In fact I am about to order another S/C kit from the states to fit into N1 TUT, which goes in for a re-spray next week.

40

Good to hear you made it through the weekend