Project 'Sh4rk'

[Dave M]

Keep in mind that the car has been running for over 6 months on daily basis and under hard conditions and all is perfect, thus the "results prove him right" comment.

Your attention to the other temperatures (extra oil cooler, etc.) will pay off in keeping the car running well - that is for sure. Higher intake temps shouldn't hurt the car at all with the way yours has been tuned, I'm just thinking there are some hidden HP yet to be gained.

[Costas]

Keep in mind that the car has been running for over 6 months on daily basis and under hard conditions and all is perfect, thus the "results prove him right" comment.

Your attention to the other temperatures (extra oil cooler, etc.) will pay off in keeping the car running well - that is for sure. Higher intake temps shouldn't hurt the car at all with the way yours has been tuned, I'm just thinking there are some hidden HP yet to be gained.

TY Dave, your comments are always appreciated. Yet after my recent experience of driving the Elan with over 400hp (I even tried 1.7boost and Greg had the guts to Use NOS on top of that) what really matters is not more hp. My personal opinion is that 300-320 are the best limit, and what matters is better Hp not more...

By better I meen less lag, smoother acceleration and with higher Rpm limit.

My main concern right now is Gearbox and Shifting. I have asked Greg to look for a Quaife sequential solution but the cost is very high. Dont know if it really makes any sence to invest more money on Sh4rk. you see, Sh4rk2 is allready schedulled ... I shall either go on with that or postpone it and upgrade even more Sh4rk.

[Costas]

Translation (continued....)

Page 5

Transmission-Gearbox
About the gearbox, for street racing and track racing its terrible, unless you drive the car that much as Costas does, and the gear shift has become an extension of your arm, a part of your body. Also, when you drive at low rpm the gears seem to be long and when you drive at the IHI turbo operating rpm then the gears seem to be short. The combination of this extreme engine with that gearbox needs more work.

On the contrary the differential is awesome. Just 50 pieces did Quaife build for the Elan and one of them arrived for the Sh4rk. It does manage to put the enormous power on street and does not affect that much the steering during the acceleration. Anyway without it, this particular macho Elan would have serious problems of driveability.

Muscle
On the dyno, the horsepower came with ease and no worries, while for street driving you need guts and strong heart to handle that horsepower. DSP helped a lot with the hand made front coil over suspension and Quaife assisted with the magical Differential. The thorough searched solutions that have been applied in suspension and transmission is the only reason why this small front wheel drive roadster with 360+hp can easily rip off the asphalt of a Dragster lane or of any track on any track day. At a fast bend track and if you manage to avoid over-accelerating that will make you arriving at the start of each bend with +50 km/h than you should (easily done with Sh4rk), then you can drive and turn at bends extremely fast. But even if you over-accelerate, Costas has been precautious for that reason and the big AP racing 4piston front brakes with drilled disks of 295mm will save you. So, take 2 deep breaths, watch out not to over-accelerate, enjoy the great responsiveness and feeling of the steering wheel, the precision and driveability of the suspension and transmission, be careful for any movement plays of the rear end especially if you pinch the brakes while turning, enjoy the comfortable ride and have fun. But......... just when you say “ok, I mastered it” you arrive at a streetlight.


Pictures
-Great construction and amazing performance for the front suspension
-(Description of sassi)
-The exchaust is of 63mm thickness with Rossi racing catalyst
-The coil overs of the suspension are hand made by Gregory Despotopoulos of DSP
-The Air Intake is by Kingdragon and a second pipe is installed that drives fresh air from beneath directly to the intake, while a hand made construction separates the filter from the engine’s hot air
-The interior does reminds in a way of Opel Omega of the early 90s but its luxurious and it can fit a big man!

[Costas]

Translation (continued...)

Page 6

Pick any gear
Choose any gear and accelerate, or pick any rival car and streetrace, the engine will prove to be awesome but unfortunately the gearbox will ruin the enthusiasm. I am sorry to say so but it seems like if the gearbox belongs to a Fiat Uno Turbo with over 200.000km on the speedometer. You need to pray to a Saint before fastshifting to 2nd and you have to pay a visit to the Saint’s Monastery if you also manage to fastshift to 3rd (that is for streetrace driving). You will not avoid scratching while shifting to 3rd (thats because a couple of months ago and while driving at the local racetrack I did the worst downshifting possible and damaged the synchronization of the 3rd gear) and above all I was worried not to brake any shift cables and force Costas to return home as a co-driver with Auto-service.

With 1000 worries about shifting, the boost power mid-adjusted at 1.3bar (about 300hp) since the slippery conditions at our test road did not allow more (didnt allow that much either), we managed to do 6.3” for 0-100km/h (the stock Elan did 7.0), 14.8” for 400m with 165km/h exit speed and 26.1 for 1km with 211+km/h.

To understand how slippery the conditions where, even though the second gear runs up to 110km/h, we had to do 2 gear shifts to reach 100km/h due to the dumb spinning. So keep in mind that 0-100km/h was measured to 6.3 but with 2 gear shifts instead of one. Also even though Costas instructed us to do launchings at 4300rpm that was not possible on that day because of the lack of grip and so all launchings were done at 2500rpm and caused a turbo lag delay as well.

Truth is that the numbers did let us down, the gearbox shifting doesn’t allow us to let the enormous power to go on the road, since the delay in shifting gears drops the Rpm below the Turbo operating range limit. The turbo does operate in full power at 5000rpm and the cutoff interrupts at 7200rpm. Off course a major role in the average numbers did play the fact that unfortunately we had shower rain for 2 days and the road surface was dirty slippery, therefore the enormous power couldn’t find grip.

We don’t look for excuses
No we don’t, nor does –even more- Costas who really didn’t care at all. This guy knows exactly what his car can do and perform, and he didn’t seem at all annoyed when he learned of the average numbers. Besides even at such slippery conditions the Sh4rk managed a 9.6” for 60-160km/h acceleration from 3rd gear (lag included) which shows the true power of this car considering its only of 1080kg weight and was operating at 1.3 boost pressure (not its limit). Just for an example, keep in mind that a Subaru Impreza Sti 330 does for the same acceleration 60-160km/h 10.5”, a whole sec more than Sh4rk. (Now keep in mind that the way they did this measurement was by selecting 3rd gear, drive at steady speed of 60km/h and then go full throttle. But the 3rd gear really kicks in with full power at 80-90km/h and so the lag time was again of over 2 secs).

Enough with the theory, for more answers, just meet Costas late at night downtown at the Street trace areas and he will ..... explain in his own particular way!


Pictures

AP Racing brakes picture
A true juel are the brakes by AP Racing with amazing results of course.

NOS Bottle picture
A bottle of NOS with all the works please!

Drifting picture
It does go sideways if you want to, that’s how they used to build cars...


NOS
The Sh4rk does have a major installation of NOS. Off course we didn’t use it during the dyno and time trials. This particular installation can produce 50-150 additional hp and is now adjusted at +75. The reason we didn’t use it is that we don’t accept NOS as an engine modification since it lasts only for a little while. Costas did install it out of curiosity to see how NOS works since he never had installed it to any of his previous cars. He does use it only for extreme reasons, its like how you keep in your house a good bottle of old wine for special guests....


2 words from Costas
I would like to thank the following:
-DSP Cars and especially Gregory Despotopoulos who apart from being my chief mechanic, he is also one of my very few best friends and he treated the Sh4rk like if it was his own car.
-The 10% of Top Fuel Racing Cars Club that awoke the craziness again inside me
-Lotuselancentral.com for all the help, support, encouragement and inspiration they provided to me



FWD (Possitives)
-Extreme Power at any gear you choose in the gearbox
-As far as we can tell, this engine will be one of the few things that will be still standing after a nuclear war.
-It still can turn very fast but not in the same way that a 200hp Elan does.

RWD (Negatives)
-If you streetrace and manage to fast shift 1st to 2nd gear then you should play a Lotto coupon as well, luck is on your side.
-If you do manage to fast swift from 2nd to 3rd you should rush to the nearest Casino since it must be your major lucky day.


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1 more page to go for translation, the one with detail technical description andd data.

Costas

[nitroman]

Costas, do you have the AB-Motorsport cables? They have made an enormous difference for me. No one will ever mistake it for a RWD car but it is far more positive and I finally have the confidence to shift at my desire & not leave myself stranded on some little-used county/mountain road many miles from home!

[Costas]

Costas, do you have the AB-Motorsport cables?

No I dont! ......

[Houdini]

No I dont! ......

Get them, they are much better than the originals with a more positive feel, and won't break!

[Dico]

its like how you keep in your house a good bottle of old wine for special guests....

lol

[desmondsee]

Costas...sorry got to bother u with more questions. Kinda keen on your twin oil cooler...could you provide a few words to describe that and whether dsp-lotus can provide a kit? (to be used with the stock setup ie no change to VF34 and custom piping yet..)

thanks!

[Costas]

Costas...sorry got to bother u with more questions. Kinda keen on your twin oil cooler...could you provide a few words to describe that and whether dsp-lotus can provide a kit? (to be used with the stock setup ie no change to VF34 and custom piping yet..)

thanks!

Ok!

The second oil cooler is again a stock Lotus Elan one. It is placed in line with the first one (conecting pipes cost about 20-30Euros at max) and positioned front mounted of the watercooler. You can see them both in the following pictures.





On the following picture you can see it positioned and on the top right of the oil cooler you can notice the 2 black connecting pipes with the stock one.



I can measure exact length of pipes and ask Greg to remove em for a minute to take some pictures for you, if you wish.

But to let you know how effective it is, the past 3 days I did a 2000miles trip to Northern Greece and many highway parts at speeds over 200km/h. Well, the oil temperature never at the whole trip risen over 70-75degrees C !!!!

DSP can provide you with a kit but I really dont think you need them to do so. Its very easy to do...

I am never bothered to answer any questions, instead its my pleasure, this forum is to help each other!

Costas

[Costas]

Minor additions.....


The black nose badge that I have purchased through Ebay, thanks to LEC for letting me know about it





The new Momo gearknob which I find awesome and that has replaced the old one which had its leather worn out...

[Monty]

The Black badge goes well with the shark and the cockpit is looking like a space shuttle with all those switches

Costas,

I`m a numpty with turbo upgrades etc and i`m hoping to go down the Garrett turbo which Russ is doing all the hard work on, but i`m worried i`m getting out of my depth here with the engine managment system as i don`t know anyone in these parts to do the mapping etc. Have i got it right that u`ve still got the stock ECU and u`r using a fuel regulator and MBC? Would like to keep it simple and try and keep the stock ECU or would it be better to go with an aftermarket engine management system?

[Costas]

Have i got it right that u've still got the stock ECU and u'r using a fuel regulator and MBC? Would like to keep it simple and try and keep the stock ECU or would it be better to go with an aftermarket engine management system?

You have it right, I have the stock ECU but there is an addon DSP chip on that that actually remaps the engine. The actual cost of it is about 5 Euros but of course DSP sells along the "programming" of it and goes at 150-200euros. Then there is a fuel regulator set at 2.8bar (for my settings), a manual boost control set steadily at 1.1 bar (at the moment but I personally never dare to touch it, only Greg does) and a solinoid with 2 settings activated by the A/C button on the dashboard that gives a +0.4bar boost to 1.5 (at the moment) then theres the Nos blah blah blah...

Previously of that, I had installed an electronic Boost Control by Blitz (500 Euros) with 4 settings for the turbo and I removed the ashtray to install it. This EBC was removed after 1 week of use, was like an alien in the elan.

I could have gonne for electronic stuff and all the japanese bling bling led things but I HATE them.

Costas

[Monty]

Thanks for the reply Costas.

but there is an addon DSP chip on that that actually remaps the engine. The actual cost of it is about 5 Euros but of course DSP sells along the "programming" of it and goes at 150-200euros.

Oh i can hear Alans name calling LOL

and a solinoid with 2 settings activated by the A/C button on the dashboard that gives a +0.4bar boost to 1.5

were does this solinoid fit? does it work just like the BSV? or would i just get away with MBC? looking for around the 260 to 280 bhp

sorry for all the questions
Jay

[Costas]

were does this solinoid fit? does it work just like the BSV? or would i just get away with MBC? looking for around the 260 to 280 bhp

sorry for all the questions
Jay

I cant remember what BSV stands for....

The solinoid is conected in line with the MBC, the following pictures are with the testing solinoid that I had installed to check things out, which I later replaced with one of higher quality and reliability. Also if you have downloaded the video with dynorun02, then at the part were dyno takes place it shows the engine (as well as the solinoid) and you can check the connections with Turbine and MBC as a complete picture.

The solinoid works like this: even though you can notice that both silicon pipes that exit from it are of the same outter diammeter, one of them has an insert ring that reduces its inner diammeter and so less air flow is possible. We didnt aim for a 0.4 difference, Greg just tried it with several inserts and decided that this difference was working better with no problems at all in fuelling even if you switch boost pressure multiple times while driving at high speeds.





Ask anything you want

Costas

[Monty]

Thanks for the photo`s.

The BSV (boost solinoid Valve) which is behinde the air box (if u still had one LOL) so obviously this what u have replaced it with.

It`s coming alittle clearer now.

thanks for the info, i`m sure i`ll have more question for u next year when hopefully the upgrade will begin

[nitroman]

Costas, what model number Momo gearshift handle is that?

[Costas]

Costas, what model number Momo gearshift handle is that?

Its MOMO COMBAT EVO AIRMETAL
"Shift knob in leather with perforated steel insert"

Cost in Greece was of 57 Euros

It has a perfect feeling while shifting!

Costas

[Doug]

nice knob, Costas

[Dave M]

Shifter feel is great. That is almost identical to my Momo shift knob. Mine has a yellow insert instead.

No comment on Doug complimenting Costas on his knob.