Tuned Esprit SE Turbo

[andy-ch]

Had a good blast with a nice yellow SE Turbo today and was surprised how quick it was, altough I did close on him with the Griff. It had some stickers from Kumschick on it. Kumschick is the main importer for Lotus/Caterham in Switzerland and is also a renowned tuner. What puzzled me was a large sticker on the back saying something like "overcooled" or "hypercooled". I don't remember exactly but it wasn't "intercooled". Could that be a clue that the car was tuned?
What are the performance figures for a standard SE Turbo?

Cheers Andy

[NLJdH]

Probably 'Chargecooler' - And I'm surprised you got that close

Turbo SE:

264bhp @ 6500rpm
261lb/ft @ 3900rpm

Top 163mph
0-60 4.7s
0-100 11.9s

Regards,
Nicholas
(Esprit SE '92, Esprit V8 '03)

>> Edited by NLJdH on Saturday 1st March 22:16

>> Edited by NLJdH on Sunday 2nd March 00:18

[Child0fthecorn]

I think you mean charge-cooled, all SE's are charge-cooled

PERFORMANCE
Max speed: 165mph/265km/h

Acceleration
0-100 km/h/0-60mph: 5.0/4.7secs
0-160 km/h/0-100mph: 11.9secs

From www.lotusespritworld.co.uk/

[benfell100]

Yes its 'Chargecooler' basically what Lotus call the water to air intercooler prior to the turbo. Makes the car go V. fast.
How did you think the car measured up then? I am always curious to know what TVR/Porsche/Ferrari drivers think of the Esprit.
Cheers
Dom

[andy-ch]

Thanks! Chargecooler was indeed what was written on the back.
We did not push it very much around the corners since temperatures are still quite low here and the Griffith is very twitchy when the rubber is not up to temperature. The Esprit looked very mean and seemed to have very good traction from its very wide tyres (I don't know what is standard but the rears seemed to be at least 295's).
The exhaust note however was disappointing, I could not hear anything even though I had the top down. This could be due to our restrictive Swiss laws and you probably have a different exhaust on UK models. The same applies to TVR's, for the Griff there is a specific Swiss exhaust that is very muted (I have a sports exhaust).
Anyway it's always nice to see other english cars and there's good camaradery here; everybody greets when crossing the likes of Lotus, Caterham, Morgan or TVR.

[NLJdH]

The exhaust note on standard UK Lotus cars is probably worse.

It's generally excepted that it's the first thing to be changed after you get your car!

TVR's etc are much better out of the box. Those companies take more pride in that side of things.

Regards,
Nicholas

[Mark91SE]

Just a note on SE performance. With an S4s or MotoConcept chip that 265 horespower figure goes up to around the 290hp area. He could have done that.

[rob.ellis]

Had a good blast with a nice yellow SE Turbo today and was surprised how quick it was, altough I did close on him with the Griff. It had some stickers from Kumschick on it. Kumschick is the main importer for Lotus/Caterham in Switzerland and is also a renowned tuner. What puzzled me was a large sticker on the back saying something like "overcooled" or "hypercooled". I don't remember exactly but it wasn't "intercooled". Could that be a clue that the car was tuned?
What are the performance figures for a standard SE Turbo?

Cheers Andy

Andy - there was a feature some time back in autocar about a guy who had TWO yellow sport 300's - he was based in switzerland. Maybe it was one of these?

A sport 300 is considerably quicker than an SE, but to the untrained eye they look similar. Did it have a big hoop spoiler on the back?

cheers
Rob