Home brew Lotus Elise Duratec

[Mark B]

I have only recently found this section of PH and with so many great projects and cars I thought I would add my own Elise project for your reading....

As a brief history, I was an Automotive Chassis Engineer following University for over 7 years and then moved into Technical recruitment some 10 years ago specialising in the Automotive and Motorsport industry. Having built a couple of kit cars and restored several VW Beetles I bought my Elise back in 2004 to be used as my everyday transport. The Elise has to be the best car I have owned, she's reliable, cheap to run and keeps the home mechanic interest alive in me. In 2008 she was retired to being a 3rd car in the family and I started to restore the areas that had started to wear.

In 2008 I decided I wanted to do an engine conversion and decided on the Ford Duratec, having seen a couple on SELOC.

So, here is where the story starts, my 125hp Elise as she was late 2007



First job was the winter of 2009 and I restored the suspension with new ball joints, autobush bushes, wheel bearings TRE’s and new rear tie rod joints.

So, went from this:




To this (Could have been ‘smarter’ but functionally fully restored)



Strings and poles then came out for the home geo, if you try this at home, don’t trap your finger between the wheel and brake calliper as you roll the car forward and backward whilst sat next too it by the spokes, it smarts somewhat!:





Late October 2008, the car was then retired for the start of the Duratec Build. It’s last outing as a relatively standard Elise S1 was at Abbeville, great fun, although a holed radiator and a can of bars fluid was less than ideal for the temp gauge when I was convinced we had HGF.. Still, had a lot of fun still.

Edited by Mark B on Saturday 7th December 18:29

[Disco You]

Your pictures don't work for me

Edit: working now

[Mark B]

So, time for the Engine to come out, the rear clam needed a bit of persuasion but was fine. The old K Series, after 90k miles, she was still pulling well and returning 35mpg as an average, more on a run and less on track



Less ancillaries and using Cosworth drawings, measurements were taken for the new engine:



All ready for the extraction, thanks to RichardG for the use of his hoist:





With the engine out, it gave me a chance to have a good look around the metal work. 10 years and 90k miles takes it’s toll on the steel bits and needed a thorough clean up to put right:











Cleaning off the surface rust ready for POR15 treatment:

[Mark B]

Time for a clean up of the car and the engine bay:

[Mark B]

Now came the interesting part, using original CAD drawings enabled me to design my adaptor plate to mate between the original Rover PG1 Gearbox and the 2.0L Ford Duratec engine:



Using the CAD model, the adaptor was machined to accept the necessary fixings enabling me to mate the engine and gearbox ready for installation.
Engine and Gearbox mounted together:



Time to remove all ancillaries form the engine:



First trial fit:



Checking clearances:



Positioning the engine:



Modified Gearbox Mount to shift the package to offset for the adaptor plate. I am pleased to say that the chassis has not required any modification at all for the fitting of the new powertrain (y)



Main engine mount fabrication:



Once the engine was in, it became apparent I would need to find a solution for the oil filter, this will either use a remote filter with oil cooler or more likely a horizontally mounted filter as used in Caterham applications. You can see here, it is tight between the bulk head and the engine:



Once the engine was fitted, it went off to have the manifold made

Edited by Mark B on Saturday 7th December 18:46

Edited by Mark B on Saturday 7th December 19:31

[Mark B]

Some of the goodies being bought for the installation:
Lightweight bespoke machined flywheel:



Roller Barrel throttle bodies with 50mm trumpets. Once the car is running, I aim to lengthen these trumpets either using bespoke items of curved Jenvey trumpets for increased intake length. Using this set up, I expect power to be compromised to a degree.




Airbox:



New Fuel filter, Fuel regulator and oil catch can mounted on the original airbox mounting:


[/quote]

Edited by Mark B on Saturday 7th December 19:31

[Mark B]

Once home, I set about tidying up the engine and rear subframe.

[Mark B]

So, once the car was home and tarted up, it was time to take the engine out and fit an AP Racing K Series clutch and a greasable clutch release arm for the gearbox.



Here you can see the lower engine mount bracket on the engine which enables a lower mount to locate to the standard subframe mount and utilises Superflex Polyurethane bushes, along with an adjustable Eliseparts mount.



So, started the mocking up of coolant hoses:





I didn’t like this long curved hoses, so I made up a metal hoses to be connected using Silicone hoses ends, which you can see later:



Then came to mounting the fuel pressure regulator, oil catch can and fuel filter. As with all things that you try to do while the car is away, the original location of the oil catch can had to be moved but no bother, it is fine in this location:



Here is the finished cooling hoses using the original flow direction for the radiator and for the original Ford routing, hopefully it will work!

[Mark B]

driveline back together which went without hitch and really does show the car coming together:

Eliseparts adjustable lower mount:



Manifold is snug, but but has plenty of clearance:



New gear linkage yet again from Eliseparts, looks pretty skanky but it’s in good condition with new bushings and a liberal spray of ACF50 to stop corrosion, it even works :up



Here you can see the otherside of the finished coolant hoses with the oil breather filter and pipework.



Clutch slave cylinder and arm all lubed up:

[Mark B]

My Raceline oil filter adaptor arrived which is required due to clearance issues. The oil filter I had bought had the wrong thread so I will go with a Halfords item for now although this will be changed as they have been known to work loose, so I will go for a FRAM item before doing many miles.



And fitted:


I also finished the fuel lines today and fitted these along with the new fuel rail and ST150 injectors.

I now needed to get my head round the wiring of the new Emerald ECU and making sure I had everything I need to construct the loom.







Having gone this far with the fuel lines, I was concerned that although they look great, the stainless hose can hide degrading pipe so I reverted away and use standard hose and an ST150 fuel rail.

I seem to be missing pictures but this is how it ended up.

Edited by Mark B on Saturday 7th December 19:19

[The Bandit]

Fantastic work Mark, will be great to see the old girl out and about again.
Can I have a go!?

[Mark B]

I then ran the car for a year but after an initial rolling road set up messed up the fueling, this engine was suffering with bore wash and generally not great. After doing several thousand miles in the car and having it mapped by Dave Walker at Emerald and playing with trumpet lengths it produced 185hp which made it a nice swift car, a major step up from the previous incarnation.

http://www.emeraldm3d.com/articles/emr-adj-length-...

So it all came out again to start a refresh and to replace bits that I was never happy with, such as coolant pipe work, and air filter set up. So (2 years passed) the following is the latest updates:

The adaptor plate:



I have created and had made by Pro Alloy hard coolant pipes removing lot's of jubilee clips. Tidied up the firewall too:



New airbox:





This was made using blue foam and wet lay up carbon.

so, with new flywheel, cnc adaptor, new mounts and clutch the engine is now back in fully wired together.

[threespires]

You seem to have done an exceptional job on your Elise. Do you have any power / performance figures?

[Mark B]

The car is now fully running and although I think it needs another mapping session to sort out the main map with different airbox and trumpet lengths along with cold start, it is running really quite well. I have decided to give the car a full tidy up as it's been sat in the garage for too long. Wheels and tyres have been replaced along with an interior clean up. Last job, along with MOT and driving the bloody thing will be a set of ally belled disks for the front and possible new springs for the Nitrons as these are corroded badly.

[DanielSan]

That's awesome. What power is making now on the ITB's?

[Mark B]

threespires said:

You seem to have done an exceptional job on your Elise. Do you have any power / performance figures?

Currently 185 hp, cams and a better head with another 500rpm would be 200+

[alan-87]

This looks superb OP, great work.

Out of interest what sort of cost is a custom flywheel? I have one I am using on my own kit car build, but it is a homebrew job made by the person who previously owned the engine and gearbox combo.

Also I'm intrigued about your use of original cad drawings to create the adapter plate. Where did you manage to source them from?

Thanks for sharing

[Mark B]

The CAD drawings were of the engine and I got these via a contact at Cosworth, the adaptor plate I designed myself, if that makes sense? The CAD drawings just gave me the hole locations relative to gearbox input shaft centre.

[PaulG40]

A fantastic build, the duratec is a great engine option for those not wanting the Honda way.

Lovely looking Elise too!!

[4pot]

How much for a kit Mark?

Looking forward to another drive in it one day!