whats wrong with toyota....not like ur driving a bmw or bently lol...ur driving a mitsu....my dads friend has one with the honda type r motor, and that thing is amaaaazing.. he has a supercharger on it now....that thing hauuuuuls!!!

i dont remember the name of the company but there is some1 that till turbo and tune it up to 360 hp for i think 6k including labor which puts it in the high 10's low 11's...the elise is a track car...once its moving it stays moving very well....

cheers

 

seems like the lotus europa is gonna be a hit (if we ever get it)

200hp turbo ecotec, easier entrance/exit, 2200 lbs

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do...ticleId=109527

 

i wonder how safe these cars are...i mean ur obviously gonna be dead against an 18 wheeler...but how does it do again a subarban or accord...a typical car thats found everywhere? i read that the mini cooper despite its size is an extremely safe car...

 

my bro-in-law has an elise and he's been looking into haas' turbo kit for it. i forget the #s exactially, but 5-6 lbs. of boost 230 rwhp or something like that. they offer several up-boost options. even with just 230 wheel hp the elise would be absolutely transformed! the car is a blast to drive as it is and on some roads or a track, once you get the car's revs up and keep them there (peak torque is somewhere around 6500rpm) the fun really begins.

 

as the guy above said the elise is so much fun to carry speed in. when you drive it hard, you can't believe how much speed you can carry through a set of corners, that's where the car really shows it's strength. My friend as a first gen elise (with a 115hp rover engine) and that car is darn quick at the track in the hands of a competent driver. If you keep the revs up and use the chassis to your advantage, there are few cars that can easily keep up through the twisty bits.

 

The Elise is a sharp looking car but impossible to own unless you are 5' 7" or less or
you are Harry Houdini........

 

Yea I seen a vid of the Elise w/ a B18c5 (Integra R motor). That car was sweet.

 

To own an Elise is to either love or hate it. I had a 2005 Lotus Elise w/ HRM options from Lotus of Greenwich in CT. The car was amazingly agile for a 190hp 1.8L engine, the power:weight ratio build is marvelous. You do have to keep the car at high rpm's to take advantage of its potentional and how the cams adjust, but there's nothing wrong with hearing your MR howl as you devour back roads or a track. I absolutely adored the styling of the car, appreciated its build purpose, but could not live with it as a daily driver in the summer time. The Elise is intended to be a 3rd or 4th car or a weekend/track warrior. To get in and out of it is more work than one can imagine (I am 6' 225lbs) and if you want to goto dinner with your girlfriend in it be prepared for her to be in your lap while you try to shift as the seats are practically stacked on top of one another. The ride quality isn't as bad as one would imagine considering the suspension and absence of sound deadening materials in the vehicle. I needed the EVO because I unfortunately need the room and the practicality of a sedan...but have been driving trackmaster events since i was 18 and couldn't have a car that I couldn't hustle around the great tracks in the northeast. The EVO is defenitely a much different car than the lotus, and really shouldn't be compared to it IMO. I love both for who they are, and that's all I suppose you can ask out of a vehicle.

 

well, i agree the elise is probably faster than it feels. but driving at 5500 ft elevation with a 200 pound passenger, it was really hurting....and i was redlining every gear. the elise felt slower than my S2000...but maybe a little faster than my ITR.

 

well the elise was designed on being light and nimbler so figure you wiegh 160 and the fatty wieght around 200...thats 360...thats about 20%
of the wieght of the car... how much slower does the evo feel with with another 800 pounds in it....figure 5 people....when i first bought my car and took bunch of friends for a ride, i thought something broke because the car wasn't pulling like it did when i was alone...it didnt cross my mind for a few seconds then it hit me lol

 

I test drove the elise before I bought my ITR (DC5). Now, the evo owns the DC5 so I guess you can draw your own conclusions.

I'm fairly used to under powered cars with super-stiff chassis (raced civics back then, including the 1.5SOHC so I knew a thing or two about not having enough power) and even then the elise was gutless. I mean, it has a pretty good chassis but it seriously doesn't make up for the lack of power (the exige, i suspect, is really rather good).

And no, I don't really rave about the handling like a lot of people. It's fun, yes. But I found it's not all that. It's fast for the power it's got, but for the money and how it looks, it should be fast period.

before people start coming up with hp/lbs figures, the lotus's engine was (they might have changed it since) quite peaky so a lot of time, the engine isn't putting out all the much power, specially before the cam thing kicks in.

 

just buy a turbo kit for the elise =)

 

mmmm forget the elise the europa is sweet

 

the exige 240 goes from 0-60 in 4.5

bout the same as an evo

 

I have seen some great points some people brought up to this topic, off course I have seen many Elises and off course I driven one while I was in the UK. A puertorican friend of mine (Carlos Oviedo, TSgt in the USAF) purchased a Elise.

I can only describe his car as a under achiever, he bought the cheapest and less powerful Elise with the Rover/Honda engine with 140hp. The car was simply a joke, I mean it was absolutely nothing special on that car that you could point out other than the looks and the handling, everything else was poor and I mean it.

Some one mentioned the weight factor, yes indeed, the Lotus Elise can suffer from extreme power/weight ratio loses significantly and disproportionally the moment yo add any weight(bigger rims and tires), more weight in the car, etc.
On the same coin, remember, this car has absolutely no torque and anything above 100mph the car has poor acceleration.

He complained of the difficulty of getting in and out, of the lack of power at all the time, the lack of comfort, the lack of equipment, so many things that he ended selling it soon.

My personal point of view you can guess it , it is not a car for me, it is too much of hard core and I couldn't be driving a Elise to work everyday, it would kill my back within minutes. The Elise is a car made for a track and for roll in an avenue to pick ladies but not a car that you want to take for a long trip.

For some of you that know what I am talking about, Opel/Vauxall(GM subsidiary car manufacturer in Germany) makes a car that makes the Elise embaress , I am talking about the Opel VX220, is like the STI/EVO in the USA , this opel is the antitesis of the Lotus Elise.


http://public.fotki.com/DaimoB/modif...alls-1/vx_220/

Here is another example of the fierce competition the Elise has in Europe, the last time I saw one Renault Sport like this I was in Paris accross the street from the Louvre Museum, I saw a F50 Ferrai and this car at the same time(back in 2000)

http://www.swaqvalley.com/Blueprints...ort_Spider.jpg

My .2c

Carlos