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111R rebuild continued .......

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 8:29 pm
by Mikie711
The continuing story of a Lotus Elise 111R that I somewhat upgraded back in 2012/13 after buying it as an accident damaged repairable.

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So 6 years and 85 days later and the journey continues.
If you haven't seen the original story about this car then you can catch up here.

Been having a blast being back in a Lotus, and have sorted a couple of niggles since she came home. Center locking is fixed as it had stopped working, broken wire in the drivers door flexi between the A pillar and door turned out to be the culprit although I changed the CDL as a precaution.

Some things have changed since I sold her in 2013. Gone is the air con, removed by the previous owner as the condenser had given out again and TBH I don't blame him. I had the same thoughts originally as the AC is pretty much useless in an Elise. The boot catch has been changed from electric to an aero catch affair and that will be changed in due course. Other than that pretty much the same as she left, a bit older and 24k miles wiser but nothing some TLC won't sort.

One thing I was never really happy about when I originally built the car was the brakes. Mike gave me the car back with the original 295mm disc's and having now had the car out and about a bit I was still very underwhelmed with he stopping power, I guess he was as well as I don't think he used them on track and swapped them out for others although I may be wrong. She is also quite unpredictable under heavy braking and will not brake in a straight line which may be a geometry issue but we will see.

So working on the premiss of go large or go home I order the Lotus BBK (big brake kit). Callipers, hoses and front pads arrived today, got a great deal from Elise Parts now just waiting for the new front AP discs to arrive from Elsie Shop which were considerably cheaper than everyone else for the same discs for some reason, which shouldn't be too far away. These will be 308mm up from the 295mm and I will install a new master cylinder as that is now a fair age given it was original. May as well go the whole hog and throw some alloy bells at the back for no particular reason other than the look cool or find some 288m discs to fit my old hubs.

Anyway, gratuitous picture of the new callipers to kick off round 2 :D

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Re: 111R rebuild continued .......

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 9:25 pm
by campbell
Caliper envy!

Re: 111R rebuild continued .......

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 10:51 pm
by C7Steve
Looking forward to seeing how the car evolves. :thumbsup


Steve.

Re: 111R rebuild continued .......

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 11:41 pm
by Mikie711
That makes 2 of us :damnfunny

The pace of evolution will not be as fast as it was originally as I still have a house to finish but we will see where this goes. Do have a few ideas up my sleeve but again time and funds will dictate much of what I may or may not do.
Just to be clear it is still a very fast Elise and anything will be an incremental rather than revolutionary change given how this car has evolved so far but I suspect many parts are interchangeable from the later models so we will see.

Re: 111R rebuild continued .......

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 11:44 pm
by j2 lot
:popcorn

Re: 111R rebuild continued .......

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 11:51 pm
by campbell
Is that bloody house not finished yet

Re: 111R rebuild continued .......

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 10:07 am
by martins
Get your finger out young man. By the way if you need a spare set of wheels at any point I have a set in my garage I could sell you for a small fee......

The rubber on them is a little old but the wheels only have very light 'KH gravel rash'.

Martin

Re: 111R rebuild continued .......

Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 2:00 pm
by alicrozier
Could do with a brake bias adjuster... I think it will have way too much front in the wet.

Re: 111R rebuild continued .......

Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 7:57 pm
by Mikie711
martins wrote:
Wed Sep 11, 2019 10:07 am
Get your finger out young man. By the way if you need a spare set of wheels at any point I have a set in my garage I could sell you for a small fee......

The rubber on them is a little old but the wheels only have very light 'KH gravel rash'.

Martin
OOOH we need to talk :)

Re: 111R rebuild continued .......

Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2020 11:44 am
by Mikie711
Finally got round to fitting the brake kit. Fairly straight forward job. Clamp the reservoir hoses, remove brake hoses, remove old calliper and disc re-fit is reverse of removal making sure you line up the new hose and banjo so as not to induce a twist in the line. Torque up the bolts and bleed the brakes. One thing of note with the BBK is that you are pad limited as most new pads are 16.5mm thick and won't fit between the disc and calliper even though the pad pattern is correct. Of course a bit of sanding will sort that out but it is a messy job. I did this to a set of Padgid RS42's as I prefer them to the 14's which do come the correct thickness as do Ferodo DS2500.
Another point worth noting is disc direction. These discs are sided, as in the are mirror images of each other and not both the same. The service manual states "The front discs are increased in diameter from 288mm to 308mm, and are cooled by internal curved vanes which trail the normal direction of rotation, to result in distinct RH and LH components" and as such I've fitted them as pictured.

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Original set up.

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New v's old

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New set up

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Look pretty good

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Interestingly the kit came with spacer washers that are fairly thick they look like the spacers for the original callipers to fit the 308mm disc's seen here. Just struck me as odd but now have them if I wanted to run standard callipers and the big disc's.
Next job will be sorting out the engine cover and tidying up a few bits and pieces I have have spotted along the way.

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Re: 111R rebuild continued .......

Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2020 2:30 pm
by C7Steve
Looking good Mike. :thumbsup


Steve.

Re: 111R rebuild continued .......

Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2020 2:47 pm
by robin
Who's blood is that next to the bolt bag?

Re: 111R rebuild continued .......

Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2020 11:01 pm
by Mikie711
No idea your honour

Re: 111R rebuild continued .......

Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2021 2:15 am
by Mikie711
Time to do a few jobs on the elise. The clam needs re-shiming as the door is catch the side panels and the main beam headlights need re-coated. A few minor repairs to the clam are also in order so...

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clam off

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you can see that the bowl has lost the majority of it's silver coating. Sent them away to get chrome spray.

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Marked out and started cutting the new engine cover. Was never really happy with the shape of the other one, cut a bit weird at the back and someone went and fitted an aero catch so going to convert it back to concealed cable operated boot release.

Probably end up cleaning up the front suspension while I am there. Has stood up well.

Removed the HID kit that had been fitted, once it's MOT'd again I'll switch to LED bulbs. Brighter but run cooler than either halogen or HID.

Re: 111R rebuild continued .......

Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2021 8:05 am
by Stephen
The suspension looks pretty good but a wee stitch in time is a good idea