Thinking about a track/fun spec S1 Elise...Help!

[I-Mac]

I am looking at a Track Spec S1 Elise for a weekend/track/hillclimb fun car....Thing is I dont really know what to look for? - Help!

Spec of the car is as follows:
1998 lotus elise s1
86K Miles - 15K since engine rebuild
Uprated Tiebars
nitrons
emerald ecu
lightweight hardtop and soft top
qed big valve conversion and ported head with ptp 170 cams and vvc inlet plenum,
no accidents
hpi clear
taxed and mot'd

[Ferg]

I would be asking how many miles since the nitrons were new/rebuilt. It's a mistake I paid for dearly when I bought mine. Ended up essentailly having to replace all but a few components and although cheaper, the rebuilds got pretty close to the price of a new set. Mine were an extreme example possibly.

[I-Mac]

Cheers Ferg - point noted. What about the engine?

[robin]

The engine will be close to 170BHP if it's all been done right.

This is around the limit for the pistons, so depending on what sort of use it's had, 15K miles could amount to quite a lot of wear.

If you think it's been tracked a lot, or driven at high RPM on the road, I would be doing a compression test on it at a minimum.

To be honest, ignoring for a moment aesthetics and "added lightness", I am no fan of early S1s. The uprights and wheel bearings are a PITA as they seem to fail quite regularly, especially on a tracked car. By now a whole host of other gremlins might also be present (corrosion in the footwells and firewall to engine bay, disintegrated heatshields, corroded fasteners, etc., etc.).

So depending on how much effort you're planning on putting in (vs. paying someone else to do) I think you need to have a good contingency fund.

Cheers,
Robin

[tut]

Mac, don't listen to Robin, a well looked after S1 will cope with 300hp, never mind 170, with no problem.

tut

[I-Mac]

Hehe, I dont mind doing the work myself....thats part of the reason I am looking at it! I miss something to tinker with

Here is the car...do you guys know it? What do you think it is worth?

http://www.lotusracing.co.uk/r486mdf.ht ... mdf/01.jpg

It has a poorly looking reflective heatshield, but looks like the header tank is brand new. It had an uprated head gasket fitted when the engine was done.

I am a bit lost, but really really keen to get one....

[roadboy]

I'd say it's worth around 10-12k but it very much depends on a lot of things.

Chris tends to sell decent cars tbh and he's someone I would trust if I were buying a car.

Well worth a good look over to make sure you know what you're letting yourself in for though.

/2p

Dan

[I-Mac]

Yeah - long way to go for a "look" though....

Would need to fly down, I have a car with a towbar, but it won't (or I won't) survive driving it down there!

[Ferg]

Blimey thats' quite a weapon! .....and my dream set of wheels, very nice.

The only thing on your activity list that would need such a prepped car is a hillclimb though. You could have an equally fun track and weekend car for less dough, or is competition the main reason for the purchase?

I have no expertise in this BTW, just interested.

[robin]

Mac, don't listen to Robin, a well looked after S1 will cope with 300hp, never mind 170, with no problem.

tut

Tut, the K-series pistons cannot cope with 300 bhp. Sustained use above 170 risks the piston ring land failing and then the engine can suffer quite a lot of damage from the breaking up of the piston.

I've changed more wheel bearings on S1s than I can remember (including several of yours). That car looks like it will have seen some track action, thus I would expect to have to change wheel bearings/uprights/flanges at some point. Although having more power makes this worse, 170bhp by itself wouldn't be so bad; it's the track use that does it, especially thumping over kerbs, overheating the brakes (worse with power and sticky tyres), high lateral loads (sticky tyres). This all leads to the shaft of the hub tapering and then you end up changing either the whole thing, or you change wheel bearings frequently; eventually you muller the uprights and if they're all alloy ones you're then on a mission to find replacements.

The brace bar thing would get on my nerves, but if you're only using it for motorsport, it's obviously a boon.

If you do buy it I would recommend dismantling the plinths and the toe links and checking all the bolts (or just replacing them all). These have a habit of fracturing and causing quite a bit of collateral damage.

Cheers,
Robin

[I-Mac]

Cheers Robin.

The car would be used for competition, the fact it's road registered and has two seats is a bonus. I was not aware about the upright issue. I guess I better check the wheel bearings. Apart from bearings, which should be easy to find, are the other components available? - can you buy uprated uprights/bearing carriers/hubs?

What do you mean by "plinths"? I can replace the bolts no prob, but guess it will then need the geometry reset? Anyone have a base geometry setting for an S1? Of would my local motorsport people know about it?

Cheers for the heads up on the pistons, I would probably look to build up a spare bench engine in time, sonthat I knew it was reliable. Or duratec it.

[robin]

Hi,

The alloy uprights need to be purchased second hand now, I believe (not 100% sure, but I don't think Lotus have them anymore). The bearings press straight into these (hence each time you swap a bearing, you also increase the ID of the bore that the bearing lives in).

You can buy uprated uprights from, e.g., Eliseparts, but these are a bit heavier and a lot of cash. They are also not allowed in the LOTRDC series, which is possibly where your car came from/might go back to?

The hubs are available from Eliseparts (uprated version) and Eliseshop (differently uprated version).

My point is that if you're going to embark on that route you'll probably end up spending a fair bit of cash and losing some of the weight saving that you had over an S2 (which has steel uprights and better bearings to start with).

The upper and lower balljoint studs mount to the uprights through steel plinths. The steel plinths then bolt to the bottom and top of the uprights. The bottom is four 17mm head bolts; these will be OK. The top is two cap head bolts that clamp the plinth face to the inside top face of the upright. The camber shims are clamped in between the top plinth and upright. Provided you put these back in as they came out, you won't need a geo. The bolts, shims, plinth and hub are all different metals. They ought to be assembled using Duralac to prevent electrolytic corrosion, but often aren't. In any case, even if they are, if the bolts are not properly torqued (perhaps due to surface corrosion relaxing the tension on the bolt) then the bolts end up carrying the load from the top of the plinth to the upper wishbone and steering. Also they can have water sitting on them even when torqued properly. When any of this happens the bolts begin to fail. Luckily they are 8.8 mild steel bolts which will often bend a bit before they fail totally, so sometimes you get a bit of warning, but not always. When they fail catastrophically you usually get tyre-clam contact

Simply replacing them with new 8.8 bolts is the simplest solution; some people swap for 10.9 bolts and then leave these undertorqued (the threads in the alloy cannot sustain the full torque of a 10.9 bolt). If you race the car you should consider replacing these bolts frequently.

Your car has the uprated rear toe links, so nothing too much to worry about there, provided it's been fitted well.

The inboard end of the toe links (uprated or otherwise) are ball joints where the stud bolts through the bottom of the subframe. The subframe is galvanized to prevent corrosion. However, often the galvanization is compromized in some way and you get corrosion and the bolt hole becomes oval, at which point the toe link starts to move under load, and eventually the bolt will fail do to the shock of being moved in/out. This is expensive to repair sensibly. Look very carefully at this area - you will need to remove the undertray to gain proper access to this. With the uprated toe links there is a shear bracket/heat shield that is bolted over the inboard end (the inboard toe link bolts through this). This makes it harder to inspect the original bolt hole area.

Inboard wishbone bushes can wear out and are quite expensive to replace the set; you should use a pry bar to gently move each of the 16 wishbone mountings to see whether there is any "knocking".

The steering racks often have a knock caused by the track rods moving in the ends of the rack (some sort of plastic washer in there collapses, I believe). This requires a rack overhaul to correct. They are a PITA to remove.

You get a fair amount of electrical gremlins too. Best to check each and every light bulb, the interior fan, the alarm/immob system operation. Run the engine up to temp and wait for the cooling fan to cut in - you may need to use a small amount of throttle on an S1 to get the car hot enough to make the fan cut in. If the dash temp reaches 104 without the fan cutting in, then the fan is perhaps seized or there is some other electrical issue.

If it's had braided brake hoses fitted, check carefully that these have not been abraded where they "mount" to the wishbones - typically the original P-clips are re-used to mount these, but the P-clips are two big and the steel braid hoses cut through the rubber on the P-clip leaving metal-to-metal contact which will eventually causes the line to burst and you lose your brakes.

Check that the brake pedal returns all the way. With the car stationary, press it hard, take your foot off the brake and then put your toe under the pedal and see if the pedal lifts at all. If it does you've got some potential master cylinder issues.

Check that the clutch pedal is nice and easy to operate - the clutch on the Elise is very light compared to most cars and you should feel that. If not, you've probably got a failing clutch pedal trunnion bush This is a nightmare to change and is often "fixed" by spray lubricant which never fixes the problem. Once worn the bush must be replaced.

Check that the doors haven't dropped on the hinges.

Check that the windows go up and down straight and that they seal with the roof at the top - any odd gaps are probably caused by failed/failing window winder mechanism which is PITA to repair/replace.

Check that the seats are mounted securely (I'm guessing yours will be). The original seat mountings are four M8 bolts into rivnuts in the chassis. Often these are cross threaded and so at least one is loose. You must also be sure that if non-standard seat mountings have been used, they aren't just holes drilled into the floor pan.

Of course there are 1,000,001 other things that could be broken, and the above are perhaps not even the most common, but they are a PITA to repair if they go wrong.

Cheers,
Robin

[tut]

Tongue in cheek Robin, actually meant the 300hp in relation to my Honda set up, ie the S1 itself will take it with the appropriate upgrades, and for some reason I have had to replace far fewer wheel bearings and ball joints on N3 than N1.

Pretty sure that I have finally got the drive shaft problems sorted out now with upgraded CV joints. Quite correct, Lotus no longer make the ali hub carriers that used to cost £80 including bearing, you now have the pleasure of paying £400 for the steel one. I could not source a used one anywhere, but fortunately did not need one, it was the outer CV joint, hub flange, and wheel bearing that had all given up when the spline sheared.

Alan and I are looking at going into business building Honda drive shaft assemblies, a used rusty pair on SELOC for £600, or a new pair consisting of only the driveshaft and hub flange, no CV joints for £650.

tut

[Gourlay83]

Alan and I are looking at going into business building Honda drive shaft assemblies, a used rusty pair on SELOC for £600, or a new pair consisting of only the driveshaft and hub flange, no CV joints for £650.

tut

Look forward to seeing you build a driveshaft up Tut Speak soon.

[I-Mac]

Cheers for the heads up Robin....Will have to memorise that lot! Dont think the chap would be too happy if I turned up with your words of wisdom printed out! Very helpfull though

Sounds like there are plenty of issues with the S1, I was under the (mis)understanding that the chassis was bombproof and it was the engine that was an issue...But sounds like there are several weakpoints (i should have guessed as it is a lotus afterall!).

I mailed the guy but he has not gotten back to me, so will wait...whilst digesting the points from above!