Was invited to take a tour of most of southern Indiana today with 4 Elise drivers. Had a BLAST. Unfortunately, it was raining pretty much all day (reason why the cars became so filthy...). But, it was still an amazing drive. I actually had no trouble whatsoever keeping up. :D We did have a couple of mishaps, though. I hit some sort of large animal carcass which ripped up the plastic undertray, and put a dent in the radiator fins... And, the guy in the red Lotus ended up hitting a nasty patch of road and caught a guardrail. Only caused superficial damage (thankfully), but tore up one light and most of his hood. Everyone's perfectly fine, though.

Anyways, here are some pics...

 

 

The Elise did not do too well here in California on the track. Too slow.
And this was with a regular track guy.

Still a great car just not one that will kick *** over the 8 and others.

 

the elise will easily kick the 8's ***, I have no idea what you are talking about. Unless in california they are not making the same power for emissions reasons, but I don't ever recall reading anything like that.

Anyways, very nice pics man, looks like fun.

 

Love that orange one! No stripes thank you :D It's clean and looks great!

 

Does anyone else think these look like cheap kit cars...?
Anyone...?

 

Check Road and Track and other stats. They are about the same in handling but have a small engine. It's like a Miata I do believe. Something like 160HP

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Edit, OK Ok so it's 190. but that's only about 140 RWHP.

 

it's 190 hp and only 2000 lbs I think, maybe a bit more.
0 to 60 mph: 4.9 sec
0 to 100 mph: 12.6 sec
1/4 mile: mid 13's

 

Galls me that they'd take a Toyota engine, slap a plastic "Lotus Performance" plaque on the cam cover, and sell the car for that much. Beautiful body, though.

 

You make my head hurt bud........ its a 2000lbs car, stop listening to joe sixpack and start looking at more than HP numbers. Were you kidding?

 

It does, however, look like something the next Gen Rx7 can shoot for in the performance category!

 

I can assure you first hand the Elise handles much better then an 8. I had one of the first deposits on one in Tampa and after waiting over a year for it to come in the dealer let me out of the deal cause the check engine light would not go off and it took them over a month to get a program from England. Anyways I bought an M3 instead...but my dealer at the time let me take the demo out often while waiting for my car to be fixed and the elise is stuck to the ground like glue. It is almost impossible to send it out of control. I mean you can take this thing around curves as fast as you dare and it just turns. The Elise however gives you a ruff ride and of course it is not the most comfortable car. Get up and go is almost llike a sport motorcycle, the power is always there... But when it is said and done the Rx8 takes my vote over the Elise that I almost owned and the M3 that I do own and selling for the Rx8.

 

As far as the post stating that they took a toyota engine and slapped a Lotus plaque on it, that is not right...Lotus is famous for improving on current engine types....The engineers remapped the electronics of the engine and it does not perform like a regular toyota engine. Its power curve is dif.

 

I think they look great...nice clean look to the interior.

 

I like the red and black one

 

you must be smokin some good crack!

 

Lotus Elises are freakin' nice. I'd take one. 40k base is a lot for me though.

Super light gives them super speed. I like. Lucky man vectorwolf.

 

Hot looking cars! I kinda like the red with the black stripe. Looks classy. Those size of those cars make the rx8 look like a hulking ogre. Great pics ... sorry to hear about the dead carcass damage.

 

It actually has ~160-168 rwhp, or about 10 more than the 180hp Celica GTS. That much power in a 19xx lb car is enough to propel it through a 1/4 mile in the low 13s if it's driven well, which makes sense considering an RX8 with 10-15 more rwhp and ~1000lbs more weight runs the same distance in the mid-high 14s. The Elise is no slouch in the acceleration department, despite what it's somewhat meager power numbers may lead you to believe.

 

Agreed. It may even be higher output, as I've seen dynos from stock Celicas within that whp range.

Nice pics btw, it's funny that the 8 looks so big in those pics.

 

i love my car, but the elise would kill a rx-8. all the car mags say the thing is ridiculous on a track

 

Jay and you didn't share?? I think I saw the red one with the black stripes on I-69 this morning. Hope your car is ok...

 

Maybe they realised that the 2zz engine is a really good engine? Not MANY engines can produce 100hp per liter stock. Even though the 2zz engine is gutless in the low rpm's until it reaches lift (lift = when the cams switch over to a more aggressive set), in a car that weighs around 2000lbs, it makes for a fun car. The 2zz engine was developed by yamaha and toyota uses them. The early engines (2000 - 2002) had weak lift bolts (when you get to a higher rpm, oil pressure presses these lift bolts up letting more air/exhaust come in and out of the engine. The 2003 - 2005 engines had stronger lift bolts, but many complained due to these engines having Drive By Wire which made it impossible to put an aftermarket Chip in the car.



Actually, though it has 10 more hp, that is crank hp. So it relates to having about 1-2 hp more to the wheels I believe. Also, the 160-168hp is correct for the FWD celica, but in a RWD vehicle more horsepower is lost from crank to the wheels.

 

I told OnRails to PM you and let you know about the drive. I think he said he never received a response. Hope you got the message?? Could've used another 8 out there. :D

And I can assure everyone that the elise is quite noticeably faster in a straight line, at ANY speed. The driver of the red/striped car brought a DVD-camcorder along, so I may be able to post some video if some of it turned out ok.