Lotus Performance

[Kosov]

[Kosov]

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[Exige]

[bmw3s]

[bmw3s]

[Kosov]

I’ve come to the realization that the pace in which days fly by when you spend time with a car, is directly proportional to how good it is. If this is the case then the Lotus Elise S I had the pleasure of driving recently must be a very good car because it seemed to have come and gone in the blink of an eye. In the process, this little red car has cemented itself high in my personal ranks of top driver’s cars. Lotus has refreshed the old recipe that made the previous iterations of the Elise phenomenal machines…

…and created a superb evolution from every single angle. They have even made it an easier machine to live with believe it or not, but in a way that its fundamental dynamics aren’t hampered in any way. So if you do have the chance to jump in one of these cars, what you will discover is a precise and engaging handling mated to a surprisingly potent engine…

…all wrapped up in what is a rather pleasant shape. The new design has an unmistakable continuity, which makes the Elise as recognizable as ever on the street.

There’s a great mix of soft curves and more angular lines…

…and the new single headlight set-up works wonders at uncluttering the front end. The Elise still has that evident functionality about it; it’s a car that has been crafted for the sole purpose of driving and every detail, both visual and mechanical…

…hints at this underlying purpose.

The little “S” next to the Elise badge on the rear bumper, as well as the small lip spoiler draped over the rear end, distinguishes this top of the line version from the base model car (which is powered by a 1.6L engine). Under the lightweight FRP hood sits a 1.8L Toyota 2ZR-FE…

…supercharged thanks to the addition of a Magnuson R900 Eaton-type blower, boosting power to 217 HP and giving a decent 250 Nm (184 lb/ft) of torque at 4,600 rpm. Now, compared to the cars we usually get to drive, this might not sound like anything too special but like all cars that come out Hethel, lack of weight is on the Elise S’s side.

It might not be as featherweight as those MKIs that hit the scales at well under 800 Kg, but for today’s standards the S’s 924 kg curb weight remains impressive.

Not wanting to waste any time on driving pointless miles in the city I took the little Lotus to my favorite driving spot, Hakone. With hundreds of miles of twisty, semi-deserted mountain roads, I had the chance to spend some quality one-on-one time with it. But before we get to the driving side of things…

…let’s continue taking in all the details of this Elise S. The aluminum chassis is suspended by a double wishbone layout at all four corners with damping taken care of by Bilstein shocks, mated to Eibach springs. By following the old “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it formula,” the handling and suspension geometry hasn’t really changed much compared to the previous car. Same with the brakes; the familiar AP Racing 2-pot front calipers remain and are paired with 288 mm drilled rotors. Same diameter discs are also fitted at the back but with smaller Brembo 1-pot slide-type calipers. This brake set up has been deemed more than enough for the car and I found absolutely no evidence that this isn’t the case. As with older cars the middle pedal is reassuringly firm, beautifully progressive and easily gauged right up to the limits of grip.

And when I say grip, I mean serious levels of grip. A great deal of this is mostly do to the Advan Neova AD07 tires the car comes with as standard, 175/55 sizes wrapping the front 16-inch rims and slightly wider 225/45 on the 17-inch rears. The wheel themselves are lightweight forged items, part of the sports pack, and as you can see having very nicely matched offsets front and back. The satin black is a superb contrast to the body’s deep red, but that’s just my opinion.

Aside from the exposed aluminum in the interior there is another hint at the Elise’s lightweight construction, the door hinges. I thought this was a beautiful detail and something I had a good look at every time I got in and out of the car.

I’ll get the negative aspects of the Elise out of the way now, before I go any further. I’m not going to lie; if you are over 6 ft the entrance and exit procedure will require some contortionism and if you happen to be a little on the stocky side be prepared to end up in some embarrassing positions as you attempt to not only get your frame though the door opening, but get your lower limbs up and over the chunky sills. By the time I returned the car to Lotus I had literally ripped the rubber seal off the driver’s side roof section by rubbing my left shoulder against it every time I got in and out.

Oh and meet this little guy. He may seem like a harmless latch-point for the door, but if you don’t give him the respect he deserves he will, and I speak from experience, impale you.

Aside from this however, I have absolutely no other issue with the Elise. Once you get into position you are presented with this thick-rimmed Momo steering wheel (yes there is an airbag in there – and on the passenger side too)…

…and a refreshingly simple instrument binnacle, which kind of reminded me of a bike’s instrument panel.

The supportive bucket seats accommodate a wide range of frames and are bolted beautifully low onto the already low floor, the first ingredient for a great driving position.

On the right sort of road your feet will become dancing partners with these three alumiunm pedals, so it’s a very good thing that they are perfectly spaced for proper heel-and-toeing antics – except if I really had to be picky I would have preferred if the accelerator pedal had a wider lower section.

The 6-speed transmission is the final piece of the puzzle, a superb little gearbox with a short and precise stroke.

The Elise comes with stability control, or Dynamic Performance Management in Lotus-speak. This has two functions; the regular setting that is on all the time or the “Sport” mode which is selectable via this little button next to the shifter. This allows the car to move around more when you are pushing over the limit – and if you prefer you can turn it completely off with the button on the right side.

The Elise S is of course a civilized car so it comes with air conditioning controlled by these three billet aluminum knobs.

The Alpine headunit the test car was fitted with even had iPod/iPhone connectivity, which is nice I guess, but I personally only used it to charge my phone. At any speeds above 60 mph you won’t be doing any music listening that’s for sure – things get pretty noisy in the cabin as, despite the addition of a few gadgets, it’s still a pretty crude car.

Oh and get this, they even put a cup holder in there! When not in use the aluminum ring retracts behind the main dashboard…

…and can be easily slid out when you need its assistance in holding your can of canned coffee. The carbon leather used to hold the can/bottle/cup is the same as used for the door trim and a very nice tough. Mind you, if you have long legs your left knee is going to continuously be hitting it when it’s pulled out…space is at a premium in the cabin after all.

The Elise’s soft-top can be removed and stored away in a matter of minutes. You will have to first undo the latches on each end of the two roof structures and then roll it up…

…leaving these admittedly flimsy plastic springy bits that you have to remove and store away with the roof. Pretty simple though.

However, as pretty and appealing as the design may be, and how spartan yet adequately accessorized the interior is now…it’s the driving that defines the Elise S. Up and down the Hakone Turnpike this car proved to be one of the most focused and fun cars I’ve driven there, not so much as say a car like the new-gen 911 was when I drove it on the same road, but more so on a basic man-machine level. The Elise is a big go-kart; every command channels a constant stream of information, it’s instant, surgically precise in every way, from its steering to how the chassis copes with whatever is thrown at it. There is so much mechanical grip you have to sort of reset your mental limits, and as you push more and more you continuously surprise yourself at how far you can really go. There aren’t that many mid-engined cars that you can throw around so aggressively, and if you do overdo it, it doesn’t bite back at all, it’s all composed and adjustable to the point that you being to get in sync with its unrelenting pace. Then there’s the engine. 217 HP don’t sound like much, but in a car that weights well less than a ton they are more than enough. The fact that the mid-range is so punchy makes the Elise S explosive out of any corner and if you really do want to abuse you can rev the little Toyota 4-pot all the way to 8,000 rpm – in no way a futile exercise, because the engine keeps on delivering all the way to its fuel cut out. The secret to driving the Elise fast is corner speed – bring a ton more into a turn that your brain will think feasible, and get back on the power far earlier than you could ever expect. The resulting grin will mean you have understood what this car is all about.

I wasn’t the only one enjoying Hakone that early Sunday morning a few months back. The parking lot at the top of the pass was filled with quite a few British sports cars…

…so many that I was beginning to think this excursion of mine coincided with a meeting of some sort.

But that wasn’t the case, it was jut a regular weekend at what is an escape for car enthusiast living in or around the capital.

The vintage cars were joined more modern machinery, Italian exotics from the 80′s, contemporary American sports cars…

…and the odd German legend.

I even came across a little cute Baby Cobra on its way down the mountain.

Since those first and affordable guises back in the late 90′s the Elise may have become a little expensive, but in no way has it ever failed to deliver what it has always promised. If you put driving satisfaction above anything else the Elise, and especially the “S” version, is without a doubt a car you should definitely consider.

[Kosov]

KRB’S ESPRIT GETS SOME SERIOUS FIREPOWER


When is a Lotus Esprit not a Lotus Esprit? How about when it’s a Group C prototype underneath? It sounds like a match made in heaven, taking the aesthetics of the most recognisable two-seater sportscars of the ’80s and matching it to the underpinnings of a thoroughbred racing car.
What’s not so surprising is that the car is in the possession of Kai Bakken – he of KRB Trading, turbo-wizard extraordinaire and the man behind the bewinged monster that is the Gatebil Audi S1. We briefly mentioned this car towards the end of last year here on Speedhunters, just after Kai had got hold of it, but I was able to spend an unhealthily long amount of quality time with the Esprit during my recent Gatebil On Ice trip, and can’t help but want to show off the updates to this build in more detail. It looks like I’m determined to keep last month’s ’80s theme running…

Kai had been chasing this silhouette Esprit for years: it was well known in Scandinavia as the fastest racing car in Norway. It had been built in the late ’80s by a Swede who had been working for British C2 racecar constructor Tiga: he bought a wrecked car, took it back to Sweden and decided on this perfect combination of form and function. Bo Ridström raced it in the late ’90s Swedish GTR Championship, and most recently Dagfinn Larsen campaigned the Lotus in the Nordic Supercar Challenge, which is where it forged its reputation.

Kai: “The Esprit was my childhood fantasy car – this and the Audi Ur Quattro. I like all these older cars. It’s like the old M3 as well – they’re more rectangular. Probably not very efficient but they look brutal. I bought the Esprit last October, after I sold the car I normally run on the ice. I had known about the car for a long time, and I’d even been driving against it many years ago. Larsen was the star in those days: it was the fastest car in Norway by a good margin, running in Special Saloons against old Porsche GTs and DTM cars. It was powered by a big NASCAR Chevy V8, which I didn’t like – I don’t like the sound or weight, and I really like boost on my engines. But it was really fast…”



The Esprit last raced in 2008, at which time the car was sold on – Kai wasn’t able to secure it that time, but the despite big plans the new owner didn’t seem to get anywhere with the project. After it had been sitting in pieces, gently mulching down after its last racing outing, the owner finally relented and agreed to sell.

At first glance it looks a bit battered… No, let me rethink that. At first glance I think it looks amazing.

Forget the chipped bodywork. The lines of the Esprit are the key. The wedge shape has been amped to obscene levels with the silhouette body, the shaping of the fibreglass panels making it far more extreme than the GT1s of the mid-90s, and it even leaves the Group 5 Esprit from the early ’80s looking simple and unassuming compared to this level of brutishness. It’s an object lesson in racing car aesthetic. If it looks fast, it probably is. And with this Esprit, which wasn’t slow before, now Kai has his plan in motion it’s just going to get faster.
I’ve seen a number of Esprit-a-likes, but many look like like they’ve been made from cereal boxes and tape: all flapping bodywork and lack of finesse. But this one is different. Maybe Colin Chapman wouldn’t claim paternity, but it has more of a proper Lotus feel to it: the lines just seem right; the air looks like it will flow over it. It looks light and fast. It emphatically says Esprit.

Maybe it’s that louvred rear deck?…

Underneath the bodywork is the full tubeframe chassis from a 1984 Tiga C2 prototype: the chassis number is gone, so it’s difficult to tell what the specific race history is. The front and rear suspension are stock Tiga parts, but the frame was rebuilt using a Tiga design and a new rollcage fitted. Tiga Race Cars folded in the 1990s, but handily have recently reactivated and started up a spares business.

Kai: ”The base car is built extremely heavy. When you look at the chassis there’s a lot of tubing, and you can see the big frame rails down the side. It’s very solid – too solid in a way! But there’s a positive. When you have a lot of power and torque it’s good to have a very stiff chassis.”

On the rear wing you can still see a Spice Engineering sticker: another classic C2 team who campaigned Tigas and tuned V8s in the ’80s (later becoming a successful constructor themselves), and showing that the wing is another part of the car with direct links to the C2 original.
Kai: ”I haven’t even driven the car yet! I got it in pieces. I have a big trailer – 3 x 2.2 x 5.5 metres – and it was filled to the roof with car in two halves, tyres, rims, spares…”

The cockpit is functional and basic. There’s a custom-made fibreglass seat which has definitely seen better days, and the cramped cockpit and gear linkage make access a challenge.
Kai: ”It’s a pain to get in and out. It’s actually easier to go in from the passenger side!”

Amazingly, the Esprit does have space for a passenger seat. Well, not space – more a slot. You’d have to be size zero to fit in comfortably, though Kai isn’t aiming to take passengers… So, the seat sits propped up against the wall along with some other spares.

Kai: ”Before there was an old dash with a lot of different gauges everywhere. I want everything in one place, and luckily it’s not expensive to do that any more, so we’ll be ripping out everything. I’ll have a Racepak data logger behind the steering wheel, which is the only thing thing I need like that. I’ll change the wheel, and integrate all the switches.”

Another modification will be to make a new fuel cell and mount it in the dead space at the rear of the cockpit. It only has a 50-litre tank at the moment, but Kai plans to build in a new cell with a catch tank to drop straight into the fuel system, with a mechanical fuel pump.

The doors need some serious work: currently you have to lift them up over the sill to open them, the result of a bit of a botch job on the hinges, and they feel like they’ll drop off if you don’t hold them up. Similarly, the mirrors look positively agricultural and in need of replacement, which is even more pressing given the rear view through the plexiglass screen…

…of the louvred rear deck.

There’s also some asymmetrical cooling intakes courtesy of the previous engine configuration, although they look pretty cool. Though it’s best not to talk about the damage done with what looks like a chisel to the roofline at some stage in the recent past…
Kai: ”Ah yes, we’re going to fix all these things: Just look at those mirrors! There was a GPS logger on the roof as well, but I won’t mount mine up there: it reads through glass fine, so I can have it on the dash. The windscreen is a stock piece: I like to have real glass.”
Although all the mechanicals were pretty sound, the electrics were a different matter after almost 30 years of ‘evolution’. The wiring threaded its way through the car with no shielding or seeming order: all of it has been ripped out, and a totally new wiring loom is just about to be fitted.
Kai: ”I’ve bought in a ton of mil-spec motorsport wiring and Raychem heat-shrink. We’ll route everything properly, and mount all the units on the rear bulkhead, like a proper racing car would have.”

The front lights are hilarious: the series regulations dictated low-voltage running lights, so these puny little things were hanging off the front…

The rear is worse…
Kai: ”They look like they’ve been robbed off an old Brian James trailer from ’73! I’m thinking of making three separate rectangular pieces out of LEDs, using the full width space of the original lights. It looks too narrow at the moment. The guy running the car before just put these in as the regs said he needed something. The originals were from some old Rover I think.”

“Lotus just grabbed parts from everywhere. The door openers are from something else. A Morris Marina or something? Which would be terrible! But it’s like the RS200 with all its Sierra parts. It was the way to get the price down with the non-essential parts.”

As befits a racer based on a C2 sportscar, there’s a lot of serious kit in each corner.

Ohlins coil-overs provide the damping…

…and enormous 380mm Brembo disks (as per the original C2) the stopping power.

The wheels and tyres are similar oversize: 18″ centre-lock BBS rims, 11″ width on the front and 13″ at the back.

The rubber on the rear is 31x71cm – on a car which is just 102cm high!

The sale came with a big stack of rims and rubber; not all the rims are entirely round, having seen plenty of battle damage over the years.
Kai: ”Yes, but with a car like this, where the wheels are so wide, you don’t seem to feel much shivering. I’ve been running with non-balanced front wheels, with rims that you can see aren’t that good, and it’s fine. On a street car it would be all over the place, but the width of the tyres evens things out I think.”

The original fronts match the mesh BBS rears…

…but Kai’s also tracked down some newer style Y-spoke BBS rims for the fronts, which make it look more modern. Those are likely to make an appearance on the final result.

The big shock for a Gatebil car will be the front-mounted radiator. Size? Big. Air flow will not be a problem, and it’s just a cleaning and renovation job, with the piping needing some upkeep and potentially changing the old-fashioned hoses.

The car came without an engine, so a new Audi engine (of course) has been inserted.
Kai: ”The original C2s usually ran with big-block V8s, but I think this had a more modern unit, with eight trumpets and 800hp – maybe 750-800nm of torque. But it was always smashing up the gearbox: it would run six or seven races and the crown and pinion would go. It was an old Hewland – they make Formula parts, and when when you look at the crown and pinion they’re huge, but as all good English racing companies do, they lighten stuff. They drilled out the centre of the pinion, leaving only a small amount of metal! And the V8 is no soft engine: the power is just on or off. With progressive power it might have been okay, but with the on/off hit of the V8 I think that’s why it kept breaking.”

In its place is a 4.2-litre Audi V8, mid-mounted low down in the chassis so you can barely see it. Kai and his team are already well progressed with the engine work: the new manifolds and intake are made, with just a bit of welding left on the wastegate and new cylinder heads and lifters to fit.
Kai: ”I hope the turbo Audi engine will be a lot smoother. It will make more power, but not instant power: it should be more controllable and easier to drive. We’re rebuilding the engine now, with steel liners and everything, rebuilding the heads, taking out the bigger lifters and mechanical camshafts. Hopefully we’ll have 400hp even without the turbos.”

Ah yes. The turbos. This is a KRB car after all. Two Comp turbos have been mounted, connected via some very tidy piping to the intercooler and ancillaries, with one turbo either side by the rear body intakes.
Kai: ”There are those two babies to make a small breeze! Not much: one bar or something, just sitting there controlling extra horsepower.”

“I know that this gearbox can handle 800nm, and when Hewland say that you know it can take that for 24 hours – and we’re only running 50 minutes or so! So I’m sure it can handle more. But if you think that the car only weighs 1,050kg, how much more than 800nm do you need? To go fast you don’t really need anything bigger.”

There’s a big change in maintenance philosophy with a car like this: everything rear of the cockpit bulkhead hangs off the engine and the whole car can be literally separated into two, which makes a huge difference when working on it.
Kai: ”If you take out all the tubes and loosen the engine you can just take off the whole of the rear. It’s very easy to work on: you can split the car in two in 15 minutes. Then you have the two halves and you can stand in front of the engine to work on it. You can also take two bolts off and the rear bodywork pivots up like an old hatchback.”


“The Audi V8 has got a really nice power band. This 4.2-litre has 400nm at 4,000rpm even with no turbo – in the S1 until the turbo kicks in there’s not so much torque. We’re using the Lotus as a bit of a test: if the V8 does what I hope it will do, I’ll put the same size engine in the Audi. The Hewland transaxle is rated to 800nm, but the Audi ‘box can take 1000nm easy. To have that kind of torque from the bottom end will be amazing in a 4WD car.”

Out back, the single-pipe exhaust routing is being finalised – it will exit out of the left rear of the car.

Driving wise it’s going to be a step-change for Kai – even from the Audi.
Kai: ”The Esprit is definitely a grip car. To go sideways with this one? There’s just too much downforce, so it’s not going to be good for drifting. The steering lock is virtually nothing – it’s built to go forward! It’s like in the Audi, which has such tremendous grip in the rear that it’s difficult to go sideways, unlike our other more stock Audis where we’re sideways all the time. But you can see if a car is fast by the way it makes a turn. In a normal car, you see the transition, but with the Audi – and this – it will just turn, bang.”

“I was talking to the guy who ran the Esprit before with the Chevy engine and it could be rough when you hit the throttle. This one had eight barrels so it was probably very rough, and he told me that even so he really had to provoke it to get the rear out. You almost need to use the clutch to slam it out. I was afraid it might be a bit nervous but he told me that it had so much grip: it’s never sideways out of corners, it just goes.

“I’m a little bit spoiled from the Audi with its four-wheel-drive, as you can just hit the throttle mid-corner and it will pull you through. I think I might miss that a little bit: 800hp and 900nm of torque… But the corner speeds in the Esprit should be a lot higher, as should the top speeds on the straight – especially when you look at the front of this compared to the S1, which is almost like a truck!”

“I really noticed that when I was doing 260-270kph on the straights, the last 10-15kph wouldn’t come easy with the Audi. You can really feel that the 4WD system is taking away a lot of power, with the differential and propshafts and driveshafts. The Audi is all about low-end grip and power rather than high-end speed. But with the Lotus, the slippery shape and new engine should make it better.”

As Kai points out, the car is in need of a lot of TLC to bring it back into racing condition, but this is a long-term project with the short-term goal of just getting the car back on track.
Kai: ”If you look at the front we have 10 different yellows showing through… But I have bad fantasies so I’ll make it white! Bright white with black detailing, plus the sponsors like the white. For this first season I’ll be short of time, so we’ll see.”

“I have the moulds to make everything, except the front. Well, I have the front too, but it was remade from the old style Lotus that won’t have space for the big front wheels. They redesigned it, so I might have to make a new mould for it. But for now I’m just going to clean it up… and change the old Volvo indicator lights!”

Kai is aiming to have the Lotus on track for the May Gatebil event at Våler, and if possible for the first round of the Norwegian GT series which is even sooner.
Kai: ”I’m aiming for the Porsche 993s in the Gatebil Extreme series! It’s been difficult to keep the reliability against those factory built cars, but I think the Lotus should be up there. Våler is the target for sure.”

In that case, Våler – and those Porsches – had better watch out. I can’t wait to see this mechanically complete and out on track, and even better when the body is revitalised. It’s going to be quite a sight.

[Kosov]

[Kosov]