Idle thought, engine swap from catham?

[gareth h]

I'm not sue how serious this is, but I have been half looking at replacing the caterham with something more sensible, possibly an Elise, there are lots of 120bhp S2s around, I would be interested in something with more get up and go, so started checking out honda engines conversions which look expensive.
My cateham has a recently rebuilt 210 bhp vhpd engine, how straightforward would it be to swap the caterham engine into the Elise and vice versa? I reckon it could devalue the caterham by 2-3k, but assume it would probably increase the value of the Elise by the same amount?
Ta
G

[k20erham]

Hi Gareth, fairly straight forward, either the Toyota 2zz engine and gearbox or the K20 type R Honda, forget anything else IMO. Both very well supported and hugely tune-able, I've got a superlite with 285BHP K20 Honda Sadev box and paddleshift but just bought an Exige S2 supercharged and LOVE it.

[gareth h]

Hi, I've read lots about the honda conversion and it sounds like the best solution, but it's out of my budget, the vhpd engine swap is almost a no cost option, and I'm loathed not to use the engine as it's just had new forged Pistons and a head rebuild after a cambelt incident!

[Altrezia]

It won't be too hard to do - and will make the Elise fly

[gareth h]

It's a dry sump engine, does that create any issues with locating the oil tank? The engine bay in an elise looks fairly crowded.

[Altrezia]

Ah there's a fair bit of room - though things do get hot.

I would say that the 120bhp S2's are probably the least desirable of all the Elises - worth considering that when buying. (I did love mine though)

[gareth h]

Altrezia said:

Ah there's a fair bit of room - though things do get hot.

I would say that the 120bhp S2's are probably the least desirable of all the Elises - worth considering that when buying. (I did love mine though)

I guess that was why it seemed like a good idea, pick up a 120 bhp elise relatively cheaply, and drop in my vhpd engine.
Off to do some tyre kicking this weekend.

[gareth h]

k20erham said:

Hi Gareth, fairly straight forward, either the Toyota 2zz engine and gearbox or the K20 type R Honda, forget anything else IMO. Both very well supported and hugely tune-able, I've got a superlite with 285BHP K20 Honda Sadev box and paddleshift but just bought an Exige S2 supercharged and LOVE it.

I've followed some of the threads featuring your 7, it sounds epic, how does the driving experience compare to the exige?

[k20erham]

The 7 is far more focused, read lighter and more grunt plus Cr500's, the Exige is more civilized and usable, I've raced bikes and cars all my life but I've developed the 7 to be as extreme as it can be really and as most on here will confirm you have to be very talented/brave/lucky to use it on the road if you use all it's potential. It's very very addictive though, the whole point of a 7 is the connection IMO but at the moment parked side by side I prefer the Exige seems more balanced despite being sat on a new set of Toyo proxis which I do not rate, but have not done a track day yet on them as I need to get them down to about 4 mm 1st and fit an Accusump.