When I first picked this up I wasn't sure it was really retro enough to be on here but if there's interest I can share a few pictures 
Back in early 2014 I bought an early series 1 elise. Honest car, couple of previous owners. Last owner had had the engine overhauled to go from 118bhp up to 156bhp in a car weighing 815kg with 25L of fuel and me sat in it.
After driving it for 6 months including a camping trip to Spa (unfortunately no pictures!) the dreaded MOT approached which it failed. It failed on emissions, the engine work included some fairly aggressive cams and a custom Emerald ECU. The previous owner had mentioned that he had trouble getting it through the MOT and Emerald had two attempts at mapping the car before they were happy with it.
I took the car to Martin at MBAutomotive who is local to me and has built a bit of a reputation with the drift cars. He squeezed me in over christmas and gave me back a car that felt completely different to drive, much more low down grunt and it was pulling all the way to 6.5k rather than running out of puff at 6k. Plus the pedal worked as a pedal rather than the on/off switch it was before.
Here is a before/after dyno (jumping ahead a bit)
You can see the bump from 4k and the ramp up to 6.75k
Anyway I was happy, and drove it around like this for another year, attended a few shows
Pistonheads sunday services:
Ace Cafe
Come 2016 I went along to my first civilised track day at Snetterton
Can you see the legendary lotus compliance? Yeah..its a bit soft.
So next came a day at a local rolling road (car was previously mapped on the road so didnt get a dyno print at the time).
Video here: same as above but noisy - sorry about the vibration at the start.
This was booked as I was looking at sprinting which has a max power output ATW of 155bhp and I wanted to be sure I was going to be okay. Dyno stated 166bhp ATF so should be fine
Added some stickers and turned up at round 1 - Snetterton again.
Cadwell:
I did 7 or 8 rounds in the end and finished 6th overall so still plenty of room for improvement! I want at least one plastic trophy this year!
Back in early 2014 I bought an early series 1 elise. Honest car, couple of previous owners. Last owner had had the engine overhauled to go from 118bhp up to 156bhp in a car weighing 815kg with 25L of fuel and me sat in it.
After driving it for 6 months including a camping trip to Spa (unfortunately no pictures!) the dreaded MOT approached which it failed. It failed on emissions, the engine work included some fairly aggressive cams and a custom Emerald ECU. The previous owner had mentioned that he had trouble getting it through the MOT and Emerald had two attempts at mapping the car before they were happy with it.
I took the car to Martin at MBAutomotive who is local to me and has built a bit of a reputation with the drift cars. He squeezed me in over christmas and gave me back a car that felt completely different to drive, much more low down grunt and it was pulling all the way to 6.5k rather than running out of puff at 6k. Plus the pedal worked as a pedal rather than the on/off switch it was before.
Here is a before/after dyno (jumping ahead a bit)
You can see the bump from 4k and the ramp up to 6.75k
Anyway I was happy, and drove it around like this for another year, attended a few shows
Pistonheads sunday services:
Ace Cafe
Come 2016 I went along to my first civilised track day at Snetterton
Can you see the legendary lotus compliance? Yeah..its a bit soft.
So next came a day at a local rolling road (car was previously mapped on the road so didnt get a dyno print at the time).
Video here: same as above but noisy - sorry about the vibration at the start.
This was booked as I was looking at sprinting which has a max power output ATW of 155bhp and I wanted to be sure I was going to be okay. Dyno stated 166bhp ATF so should be fine
Added some stickers and turned up at round 1 - Snetterton again.
Cadwell:
I did 7 or 8 rounds in the end and finished 6th overall so still plenty of room for improvement! I want at least one plastic trophy this year!
