Lotus Elan Central

by **Houdini** » Mon 03.01.2005, 22:31

Good work so far! I've been away from email, phone, and TV (Kauai) for 2 weeks, but I'm not complaining. There are so many posts to read it will probably take a week to catch up. As far as compressor orientation goes, it doesn't really matter as long as the hoses can be routed to the cooler and they don't interfere with the hood or anything else. Sometimes when making something a little custom you have to give a little and take a little. In your case the actuator assembly may be preventing you from the orientation you want. I have a similar problem on my Garrett installation. The actuator interfers with the compressor housing if I rotate it down, so I may have it point straight up instead. There appears to be enough room but I haven't tried yet. The problem can be solved by using an external wastegate but this will add more money and fabrication work to the installation. If your are not concerned with a factory look I wouldn't worry about it. I also wouldn't worry about adding a few extra bends in the system. Although your installation may start to look like a hamster habitrail it is not going to hurt your performance measurably. Performance is hurt more by improper Turbo matching, poor performing charge cooler, flow through the intake, head, and exhaust. Here is a real world example. A friend at work had a custom Turbo system on his Miata. The first charge air routing was not pretty at all. It was all over the place so he fabricated a new clean and shorter routing system with less bends and the chassis dyno results were within 2 HP which is less than the tolerance of 5 HP expected for a dyno. This was at 250 HP for 1.8 liter. He already had a custom SS exhaust header and custom exhaust. He then worked on the intake manifold and head to maximize flow and it jumped up to 285 HP. Then he changed the compressor side of the Turbo (Wheel and Housing) and was running 325 at the wheels at 12 psi. What a fun car that was, now he working on an M3, and putting a Turbo on it of course. Best of luck and I can't wait to see the final results. ,Russ

by **Costas** » Tue 04.01.2005, 00:10

Well Russ, trust me, your words were exactly what my mechanic told me when I asked him about it. Reading your post was like a Dejavu for me! Will be posting progress on everyday basis! Costas

by **Doug** » Tue 04.01.2005, 01:13

Glad the turbo expert is back--go with what he says ;) and keep the pictures and progress discussion coming . . .

by **Costas** » Tue 04.01.2005, 23:55

Yeap, I am using the stock IC :-/ ...not that we havent thought of upgrating it....

by **Houdini** » Wed 05.01.2005, 05:58

How about this!? ;D

by **Philbo** » Wed 05.01.2005, 11:28

Yes please! I'll provide you with my address so you can send it to me!

by **Darren** » Wed 05.01.2005, 14:16

Turbocharger, That's a work of art and if it performs a well as it looks, you'll be onto a winner, assuming you plan to go into production. On a separate thought, what's the chances of incorporating/facilitating, a water spray system ? Darren ~~~~

by **Costas** » Wed 05.01.2005, 18:09

[quote author=Turbocharger link=board=project;num=1102128446;start=30#30 date=01/04/05 at 20:58:24]How about this!? ;D [/quote] That is definately a future "must do"!!! Hook me up with more details pleeeease! [smiley=naughty.gif]

by **Costas** » Wed 05.01.2005, 18:22

The new downpipe is custom made as ordered and installed.

Custom made pipes were also done today!

by **Game-on** » Wed 05.01.2005, 18:40

WOW... they do look very good. I cant wait until you get this car running... it will be @@@@ing quick Game-on P.S i do like you bling !!!!!

by **Costas** » Wed 05.01.2005, 20:51

Finally after installing the pipe for the intake compressor outlet, it is easily noticeable that pointing upwards was not a problem at all.

It really can not be described the feeling of watching the engine mods building day after day and the picture to become even more pleasant of what I expected. They say that a picture is worth 1000 words but not even 1000 pictures can describe how it really looks like when I see it with my own eyes. As a joke, my mechanics told me today "It looks great, I hope it works also!". then again its so beatiful I could easily remove the TV from my house and put the Sh4rk instead, pop up the hood and sit on my couch and stare at the engine for ages.......

Is this what a Lotus does to you too?Costas

by **Houdini** » Wed 05.01.2005, 20:58

Philbo, A charge cooler for partial payment on a Quiafe? Darren, Yes you can easily incorporate a spray system for water or CO2. Velisaios and Game-on, Cooler is shown below in 2 additional pictures. I will be keeping the one shown, it's my second one. The first is already in the car and this one I want to keep as a template. I will make more but need to have about 50 orders as the tanks would be cast aluminum. It's just too much work to fabricate these on a limited basis. I would estimate the price at $400 US max. It would probably be closer to $300 but I could run into some extra costs. The costs are the core itself, tooling for the casting, some machining, and labor to have them welded. All units would be pressure tested.

p.s. How do like my garage floor? ??? A little hard to keep clean but I like the look.

by **Game-on** » Wed 05.01.2005, 21:10

Well if you are going to make any please let me know. Game-on

by **Houdini** » Wed 05.01.2005, 21:25

Game-on, I will make them if the interest is there. I will concider parting with the spare maybe. I still have the original to use as a template for mounting etc. but I like having the spare to show people. How soon do you need one, and what kind of power are you running? ,Russ

by **Philbo** » Wed 05.01.2005, 21:32

[quote author=Turbocharger link=board=project;num=1102128446;start=30#38 date=01/05/05 at 11:58:44]Philbo, A charge cooler for partial payment on a Quiafe? p.s. How do like my garage floor? ??? A little hard to keep clean but I like the look. [/quote] I wish I had Quaifes to spare, actually at the moment I'm out of pocket on them as in the time between me setting the price for the US guys and me actually getting my money the exchange rate soared and those things ended up costing me money... Still, your garage floor looks awesome. Veneer, solid or laminate? What kind of improvement in flow does your IC have over stock? I definitely could benefit from improved cooling. Also, if we can't get 50 together, is it possible to get a price on say 20 or even individual orders? I know it is a hassle and would cost more, but if only a couple of us want them, is it an option? Cheers Philbo

by **Houdini** » Thu 06.01.2005, 03:21

Philbo, You don't want to see my real garage floor! :'( That just happens to be my oak kitchen floor from when the house was built in 1948. I will build less coolers if I can come up with an economical way of doing it. The actual material costs are not that much but paying to have the welding and other fab work done is what costs. First let me start by seeing what the minimum number of cores is I can have built. I imagine that it will be about 10. Then let me see about the tanks. I have 2 options, one is to have them cast using rapid protoype castings which will be less accurate but should work. the second is to send the cores off to a distributor/fabricator of ours and he fabs up tanks similiar to what you see here. As far as performance goes well I have not had a chance to do real world testing, but when they were analyzed by our Thermal Engineering Group I was told the new cooler would be like night and day compared to the old cooler. That becomes very obvious just looking at the 2 together. First af all core size is increased, fin density is greater, fin design is far superior, heat transfer surface area is better and there is much more of it, and the tanks are aluminum as well which is also contributing to better heat transfer. Pressure drop although not measured is very low. An example of our core performance is when we did a recent inhouse comparison between a Spearco charge cooler and ours with the same dimensions and using the exact same end tanks for Edelbrock. Ours had less pressure drop and a greater delta Temp. Edelbrock switched to ours without hesitation. We also make cores for Whipple, Kenne Bell, Ford SVT, AMG, Mercury Racing, Saleen, etc. and they all love them. As a matter a fact that's one reason why I have a hard time getting cores because they won't make any money selling me a few, and because our plant is at near 100% capacity. Now I know all this sounds great and all, but the bottom line is everyone wants to know what the performance is like in our car. I wish I could tell you but I can't because I never got ElanScan to work for me. I'll try to hook up with Brian again and see what I can come up with. I can tell you the cooler looks great, should work great, but if it doesn't I'll have people asking for there money back. Later, Russ

by **Doug** » Thu 06.01.2005, 07:35

[quote author=Turbocharger link=board=project;num=1102128446;start=30#30 date=01/04/05 at 20:58:24]How about this!? ;D

[/quote] How many beers fit into that ?? [smiley=crazed.gif] I would be interested in your new IC -- looks fabulous and certainly a technogoly leap compared to the O.E. one !!

by **Doug** » Thu 06.01.2005, 07:36

[quote author=Velisarios link=board=project;num=1102128446;start=30#36 date=01/05/05 at 11:51:35]Finally after installing the pipe for the intake compressor outlet, it is easily noticeable that pointing upwards was not a problem at all.[/quote] Looks great, Veli !! Should kick ass !! Beautiful downpipe as well, your turbo is going to be great!!

by **muley** » Thu 06.01.2005, 10:48

Costas, Like the pipes! Hope it goes as well as it looks. Just to add to the intercooler comments (not wisihng to hi-jack the thread) , I spoke to my local Serck-Marston depot the other day. They do not do intercoolers for the Elan and they cannot be recored (apparently) However, he said there wouldn't be a problem because they would custom build one from scratch in welded alloy. Obviously, my next question was : how much? He reckoned about GBP200 which I thought was a bargain cf. the genuine article at around a grand. Cheers Jim B

by **Game-on** » Thu 06.01.2005, 18:22

Velisarios, I am watching this thread like glue... The question i want to ask in on the custom Front suspension ... please tell me more on this; as i would like to know where to get some and what do you think the car should handle like with them on.... Game-on

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