by Costas » Fri 30.12.2005, 03:17
TRANSLATION
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Caught at Sharks’ Jaws
The small shark sticker at the rear panel is not there just for fun. Costas didnt chose it in random as a symbol for this famous Elan. Hold your breath, because as soon as Sh4rk smells your fear he will attack you with no second thought done. Sh4rk will not spare anyone.
I am refered as Lotusakias, my nickname in Athens, meaning the Lotus Fanatic, but instead I use my real name in translation.
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Its been a long time since Lotus Elan was burning hearts at the early 90s. Small in size, 2 seater, elegant and fast had only 2 negatives. First of all at the engine cover next to “Lotus” there was a word that the British would love not to be able to read it, ISUZU, shame... (but that has been taken care of by DSP as you can see on the engine picture), secondly it was a front wheel drive (that cant be changed) yet it was, and still is, a milestone for front wheel drive handling and drive-ability. The chassis (technical description of chassis I cant translate) has amazing limits of grip and Elan is great fun to drive. Yes, its exactly like this, and keep in mind that we are talking for a British roadster that is about 15 years old.
The Sh4rk
It is Black, it serfs at the streets of Athens & Greece, and bites hard. Costas is a well-known adrenaline street racer with a history of lots of small car bombs like the Lancia Y10 Turbo and the Golf GTI Turbo by Oettinger. His Lotus Elan S2 for a kickoff got a remap and an increase in boost pressure by Gregory Despotopoulos of DSP (a close friend of Costas), and produced 200hp. But as some say “life starts at 200”, hp or km/h doesn’t matter, the best to come is beyond 200.
ENGINE
Its a rare case, there are not many engine modifiers worldwide that have tried to improve this engine. The lightening of the crank by 600gr and the handmade flywheel that is also lighter by 800gr help the engine to increase rpm faster. The responsiveness in throttle is very good but the big IHI VF34BB Turbo needs a bigger load to operate and in that area the lightening of the moving parts of the engine didn’t help. As a result the max torque is at 5000rpm as it is shown on the dynogram. A very thorough search has been done on the engine gusget, the stock one is of 1.4 mm thickness while the handmade one that is made by DSP is of 3.1 mm thickness so as to drop combustion ratio. It is made by outer layers of permanite (? cant find translation) and inner layers of copper. The forged pistons by JE are a guarantee for reliability and for the same reason the Air-conditioning is removed and replaced by a second in line oil cooler. On the Engine cover (technical description I cant translate) and according to Greg of DSP no change needed to be done to the stock Intercooler, and the results prove him right!
Engine Picture
Tremendous detail on everything, perfect work on all pipes and a big story inside the engine.
Blow Valve Picture
Handmade Blow off valve, open type (?) with self lubricated piston.
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Not just improved but one of its kind.
At the Lotuselancentral forum Costas’s project is well known. Many do enjoy the mods he has done but some dont agree at all since they dont side with the fact that he modified a collectible car and especially a Lotus car.
Its not just the engine that was torn to pieces but the whole car was. Especially from the dashboard and frontgoing there is no part that hasn’t been replaced with an aftermarket or custom made part that is modified and upgraded. Same goes for the rear end panel that has been drawn, designed and built by DSP from scratch and it really gives to the Elan the look of the later generation of Esprit. It is unique and it is one of the very few exterior look modifications that we have ever seen that not only find us agreed but its a perfect job. It really looks like if it is a Lotus factory line job in detailing, adjustment, building quality and color painting.
Enough with the blah blah
At the initial briefing a target in power Hp wasn’t set, it was a “lets do it and whatever may” project (2). The engine cover was treated (technical description I cant translate) As far as it concerns the engine inner parts? Panic! Rods, crank and flywheel were lightened and microbalanced, 4 forged JE pistons were installed but the rpm limit wasn’t changed from 7200. The hp gain wouldn’t be accomplished by raising the rpm limit but instead by installing a bigger Turbo which was fed by the also bigger Tomco fuel injectors. The exhaust is handmade as well and because the human nature is never satisfied, a NOS installation was also added behind the seats.... just in case! With all these mods done, the dynometer went crazy and all who learn that a 10 year old Elan is not just healthy but it is modified at its limits and produces 362hp and 42kgm of torque go crazy and amazed about it.
Picture of purge valves
The Sh4rk is pissed off and snores!
Picture of rear panel
No, its not an Esprit Roadster, its an Elan
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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!
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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.
Exige S2 240 - Elan S2 Sh4rk (sold)
Power 362hp (437hp NOS)
FasteR Magazine: As far as we can tell, Sh4rk's engine will be one of the few things that will be still standing after a nuclear war!
