Surprised you didn't accuse me of pouring it all over your tyres after you spun as soon as you went back out!
Simon
What You've Done, why you did it..
Mods I have known ...
In my long and elustrious (OK, long and expensive 
) elise career I have owned, err (counts on fingers), 6 elises (OK, 5 elises and 1 exige).
Of all of these, the quickest out of the box was the 118BHP S2 (very early car in racetech guise). What it lost in weight it made up through the close ratio box and better suspension. From that I deduce that if you have a standard S1 you should consider a close ratio box and either Nitron or S2 suspension for it (Nitron if you are more track oriented, S2 if you're more road oriented). Note that C/R boxes are not good for people that spend their life on the motorway - you have been warned!
Avoid cat-replacement pipes like the plague - very loud and anti-social for those following you!
If you have steel brakes already then I would recommend steel hoses for better brake pedal feel, again more a track thing than a road thing. The EBC grooved disks are fine and good value for money, but unless you change pads yourself (i.e. no labour charge), the EBC green pads are a false economy as they will accelerate your disk consumption and don't last that many miles.
Pagid RS42s are my favourite pad but I have yet to run a set of RS14s which get a good write up for track use too. SBS pro-whatevers are just fine (I am running those on the Elise at present), though slightly more wooden than the RS42s they are half the price!
In terms of engines:
I've had a standard 135 kit (ported head, VVC-style plenum, Janspeed sport exhaust) - that makes the K rev properly - you don't need the intake plenum to make that work and you can achieve more-or-less the same result with fitting just a set of piper (IIRC) hydraulic cams (cannot remember exact number - there is a grind that produces peak power within the standard 7K rev limit - this is what you want) onto your standard head with a sporty exhaust of your choice. Either of these upgrades will work with the MEMS (standard ECU) without any gadgets or changes to fuel pressure, etc.
This setup (in either guise) makes the biggest difference over standard because you gain the usable revs - makes a lot of difference on track, especially coupled with c/r box.
I then migrated the 135 to a ~160 setup by adding piper 265s (I think - a long time ago), an emerald ECU (mapped at emerald) and an ITG maxogen intake. Made a lot of difference to noise, and gave more power, but never translated into much of an improvement on the track. That car had LSS suspension, now effectively relegated by the Nitron (similar price but with adjustable damper rate). Unfortunately it ended up in the armco in Spain ...
Then came the standard S2, which I kept as standard over a two year period IIRC - it got sold when I stumbled across a lonely and sad standard S1 in someone's backyard - that's the current shed.
Its K got the PTP165 treatment. This is a proper VHPD-style head so has bigger valves, non-dairy metal, ITG filter and VVC-style plenum , sports cat, sports exhaust, close ratio box, nitron suspension. I haven't dyno'd it, but I think it must make a significant improvement over the homebrew 160 kit because it goes faster (well it did until Neil broke it).
The exige is still standard, but good fun It has plenty of power, but of course carries a weight penalty so isn't as quick as it could be. I actually think the best upgrade for the Exige is going to be a 100kg weight saving The exige is good because it's like two cars - a nice quiet car to pootle about in and a screaming banshee on the track - you need to work it to keep it going, however.
On balance if you really want engine upgrades and don't want a CR box then I think the PTP kit is hard to beat - it's guaranteed for 1 year will make 170BHP and takes you pretty much as far as you want to go without spending money on the bottom end. Whichever way you do that, it costs a lot!!
If you can live with a CR box, then any ~135 type of upgrade is going to be great on the track (the 135 S1 and S2 are great - the S2 135R is one of my all time favourites, but only in bright yellow!). The extra power of the PTP kit is then good but isn't going to make that much difference.
The real problem with upgrading the engine is that it's an expensive arms race that you cannot win, even if you are happy to spend 15K. So I think you need to think hard about why you want to upgrade and then put together a package that will suit you. In my experience whatever you do someone will have more power than you, and you will both be passed by someone in a bog standard car
See you,
Robin
) elise career I have owned, err (counts on fingers), 6 elises (OK, 5 elises and 1 exige).Of all of these, the quickest out of the box was the 118BHP S2 (very early car in racetech guise). What it lost in weight it made up through the close ratio box and better suspension. From that I deduce that if you have a standard S1 you should consider a close ratio box and either Nitron or S2 suspension for it (Nitron if you are more track oriented, S2 if you're more road oriented). Note that C/R boxes are not good for people that spend their life on the motorway - you have been warned!
Avoid cat-replacement pipes like the plague - very loud and anti-social for those following you!
If you have steel brakes already then I would recommend steel hoses for better brake pedal feel, again more a track thing than a road thing. The EBC grooved disks are fine and good value for money, but unless you change pads yourself (i.e. no labour charge), the EBC green pads are a false economy as they will accelerate your disk consumption and don't last that many miles.
Pagid RS42s are my favourite pad but I have yet to run a set of RS14s which get a good write up for track use too. SBS pro-whatevers are just fine (I am running those on the Elise at present), though slightly more wooden than the RS42s they are half the price!
In terms of engines:
I've had a standard 135 kit (ported head, VVC-style plenum, Janspeed sport exhaust) - that makes the K rev properly - you don't need the intake plenum to make that work and you can achieve more-or-less the same result with fitting just a set of piper (IIRC) hydraulic cams (cannot remember exact number - there is a grind that produces peak power within the standard 7K rev limit - this is what you want) onto your standard head with a sporty exhaust of your choice. Either of these upgrades will work with the MEMS (standard ECU) without any gadgets or changes to fuel pressure, etc.
This setup (in either guise) makes the biggest difference over standard because you gain the usable revs - makes a lot of difference on track, especially coupled with c/r box.
I then migrated the 135 to a ~160 setup by adding piper 265s (I think - a long time ago), an emerald ECU (mapped at emerald) and an ITG maxogen intake. Made a lot of difference to noise, and gave more power, but never translated into much of an improvement on the track. That car had LSS suspension, now effectively relegated by the Nitron (similar price but with adjustable damper rate). Unfortunately it ended up in the armco in Spain ...
Then came the standard S2, which I kept as standard over a two year period IIRC - it got sold when I stumbled across a lonely and sad standard S1 in someone's backyard - that's the current shed.
Its K got the PTP165 treatment. This is a proper VHPD-style head so has bigger valves, non-dairy metal, ITG filter and VVC-style plenum , sports cat, sports exhaust, close ratio box, nitron suspension. I haven't dyno'd it, but I think it must make a significant improvement over the homebrew 160 kit because it goes faster (well it did until Neil broke it
).The exige is still standard, but good fun
It has plenty of power, but of course carries a weight penalty so isn't as quick as it could be. I actually think the best upgrade for the Exige is going to be a 100kg weight saving The exige is good because it's like two cars - a nice quiet car to pootle about in and a screaming banshee on the track - you need to work it to keep it going, however.On balance if you really want engine upgrades and don't want a CR box then I think the PTP kit is hard to beat - it's guaranteed for 1 year will make 170BHP and takes you pretty much as far as you want to go without spending money on the bottom end. Whichever way you do that, it costs a lot!!
If you can live with a CR box, then any ~135 type of upgrade is going to be great on the track (the 135 S1 and S2 are great - the S2 135R is one of my all time favourites, but only in bright yellow!). The extra power of the PTP kit is then good but isn't going to make that much difference.
The real problem with upgrading the engine is that it's an expensive arms race that you cannot win, even if you are happy to spend 15K. So I think you need to think hard about why you want to upgrade and then put together a package that will suit you. In my experience whatever you do someone will have more power than you, and you will both be passed by someone in a bog standard car
See you,
Robin