KOMO-TEC 280S Kit on my 2007 Exige S

[T.O. Exige]

Even though its not part of the kit, I polished the Intercooler tubes to add some bling! to the engine compartment. I also had the inside of the tubes polished with a flexible hone to clean up the casting slag and smooth out the air flow.

[probax]

Daniel is the best tuner for Lotus cars in Germany and I'm very interested in your results and dyno measurements since I want to go the same way.
Daniel has two levels for the Exige-S: Phase 1 with 250 and Phase 2 with 280 bhp. What's curious though is the torque comparing Phase 1 with 2. Phase 1 is better up to 4500rpm where the xover point is. Beyond 4500rpm Phase 2 produces torque like hell. An addition there's a weak torque area around 3000rpm - wondering where this comes from.

The y-axis in the graph is torque in Nm.

Looking foward to your measurements

Regards,
Frank

[T.O. Exige]

Originally Posted by probax

Daniel is the best tuner for Lotus cars in Germany and I'm very interested in your results and dyno measurements since I want to go the same way.
Daniel has two levels for the Exige-S: Phase 1 with 250 and Phase 2 with 280 bhp. What's curious though is the torque comparing Phase 1 with 2. Phase 1 is better up to 4500rpm where the xover point is. Beyond 4500rpm Phase 2 produces torque like hell. An addition there's a weak torque area around 3000rpm - wondering where this comes from.


Looking foward to your measurements

Regards,
Frank

I plan on taking the car to the Dyno Shop upon completion of the installation. I did quite a bit of research into the various options available to bring the HP up on the stock Exige S. The deciding factor for me was made after having the pleasure of driving a KOMO-TEC 280s kitted car in Germany through the Black Forest and out on to the Autobahn. Hard to explain in words what this upgrade does for the car. I will tell you that its probably the most times in a 2 hour span that i have said "Holy %#*@" What impressed me the most was the rapid acceleration in mid gears even starting at low RPM's...almost felt like it had an afterburner.

[T.O. Exige]

Heres a picture of KOMO-TEC's Cold Air Intake installed in replacement of the factory air box. Very nice quality spun aluminum inlet cone. This picture was shot from under the car, tough to get a good angle.

[T.O. Exige]

I thought i would take the opportunity to post some pictures of the KOMO-TEC water jacketed Intercooler and the Lotus OEM Intercooler side by side. As with the other items in the kit, the quality of the workmanship is excellent.

[uglyduck]

Nice work....how many gallons of water do you need to fill the system? Do they have reinforced IC brackets to support the extra weight?

[probax]

Originally Posted by T.O. Exige

I thought i would take the opportunity to post some pictures of the KOMO-TEC water jacketed Intercooler and the Lotus OEM Intercooler side by side. As with the other items in the kit, the quality of the workmanship is excellent.

Do you have weights comparing the OEM intercooler and the one from Komotec. I heard the whole phase 2 equipment adds about 15 kilos more. Can you confirm this?

Thanks for the pictures you've done - great!

[T.O. Exige]

Originally Posted by probax

Do you have weights comparing the OEM intercooler and the one from Komotec. I heard the whole phase 2 equipment adds about 15 kilos more. Can you confirm this?

Thanks for the pictures you've done - great!

The KOMO-TEC Intercooler is constructed out of very thin aluminum which is TIG welded together. In comparison to the Lotus OEM unit it weighs about 2 lbs more empty. The overall kit including the Muffler, Catalyst, Intercooler, etc weighs in at approximately 21kgs (according to the shipping documents). By time you replace the factory Muffler, Catalyst, Intercooler and complete Airbox Setup with the kit, I would think you would be back to the OEM original weight or close to it. Not including the water/coolant.

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Originally Posted by uglyduck

Nice work....how many gallons of water do you need to fill the system? Do they have reinforced IC brackets to support the extra weight?

The IC brackets look like they were re-welded along the gussets. I would guesstimate the Intercooler would hold about 6 litres of liquid. I'm going to be using either a Dielectric Fluid or Polyalphaolefins in replacement of the water because of their superior conductive and transfer qualities.

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[uglyduck]

Does the system also come with a fan for the front mounted heat exchanger? From what I understand they have to run the coolant tubes through the frame from the IC to the heat exchanger. Are you concerned with heat buildup in the side frame? as it is they can get pretty worm as they house the rad as well as oil cooler lines. This will likely add a few gallons of coolant? Is there an expansion tank in the system or just the overflow bottle attached to the rad cap on the top of the IC?
I can't wait to see the finished product......keep it coming.

[Ade]

The front mounted heat exchanger design is part of the reason why I didn't go for the Komotec conversion and went my own way, the heat exchanger sits behind the grill in direct path of stones etc, also has no fans for cooling whislt in traffic and it is a bit small to. I also believe the hot air coming from the exchanger also will end up in the vents for bringing cold air into the car for the heater\aircon. My other concern was the charge cooler was not a real charge cooler but one fabricated from the original air to air one, this was never going to be as efficient as a custom one.

[T.O. Exige]

Originally Posted by Ade

The front mounted heat exchanger design is part of the reason why I didn't go for the Komotec conversion and went my own way, the heat exchanger sits behind the grill in direct path of stones etc, also has no fans for cooling whislt in traffic and it is a bit small to. I also believe the hot air coming from the exchanger also will end up in the vents for bringing cold air into the car for the heater\aircon. My other concern was the charge cooler was not a real charge cooler but one fabricated from the original air to air one, this was never going to be as efficient as a custom one.

I respect your viewpoint and opinion. These were also concerns that I had to overcome before I made the final decision to got with KOMO-TEC's complete 280S kit. Keep in mind that this was not some thrown together mishmash of items but rather a complete system that was created over considerable research and development time on the track and engine/chassis dyno in Germany. The results have been well documented with the over 40 installations that have been done to date and I believe speak for themselves.

I don't doubt that you could create a good kit by using components acquired from a number of sources. My goal from the beginning was to install a complete proven upgrade that was created through the process KOMO-TEC used to achieve their results. Dependability was the primary concern I had going into this project and that concern was met through the months of research I did, speaking to others in Japan and Europe that had the kit and ultimately driving a kitted Exige S in Germany. Time will tell if it was the right choice.

With regards to your comments about the Intercooler and Heat Exchanger, I also had these concerns. According to Daniel at KOMO-TEC, to date, no one has lost a Heat Exchanger from a kicked up rock. I don't disagree with you that a custom Intercooler could be optimized, but I also recognize there is a point of diminished returns based on thermal conductivity and transfer of energy. The supplied Heat exchanger was sized for the system through the R&D process and found to provide the optimum results for the reworked Intercooler. If a larger unit would have given better results, the kit would have a larger unit supplied. At this point its not a matter of saving dollars by cutting costs.

[cpia2002]

Well said T.o

Ive done over 11,000 miles since the converision and the car is running better than ever- not one problem all those miles.

Driven on the track, in rain, in heat, everywhere anywhere and not one single issue.

And obviously the car is a different beast in performance compared to the exige s.

[Ade]

Originally Posted by cpia2002

Well said T.o

Ive done over 11,000 miles since the converision and the car is running better than ever- not one problem all those miles.

Driven on the track, in rain, in heat, everywhere anywhere and not one single issue.

And obviously the car is a different beast in performance compared to the exige s.

But you are seeling yours?

It is a shame they did not do a better job of the CC and heat exchanger, as what they designed is compromised and using a bespoke CC to start with rather than reworking the original would have saved R&D cash therefore making the kit in my opinion better and probably cheaper. It sounds impressive to put a jacket and add the expansion tank to it, but with no fans on the exchanger you just create one big heat sink during hot weather.
As I see it it horses for courses and they came so close to getting my money to, I was just lucky enough for all the right bits for me to come along just at the right time for me to get my car done.

[cpia2002]

Selling mine due to finance -


The car is amazing but im not rich enough to keep it and buy the house and get married- so with a heavy heart i havce to sell.

Believe me if i could keep the car AND afford to do this i would but i can't.

If the car doesnt sell i get to keep it and we will just have to re think the house buying

Don't worry i plan to be getting back in to the fold once i can again

[T.O. Exige]

Originally Posted by cpia2002

Selling mine due to finance -


The car is amazing but im not rich enough to keep it and buy the house and get married- so with a heavy heart i havce to sell.

Believe me if i could keep the car AND afford to do this i would but i can't.

If the car doesnt sell i get to keep it and we will just have to re think the house buying

Don't worry i plan to be getting back in to the fold once i can again

Sorry to hear that you need to make this kind of choice. I appreciate your prior input during my due-diligence process with regards to your own experience with the 280S kit. Very nice article they did on your car. Good luck in your future.

[GTsRasta]

Do you know what centrifugal supercharger unit this kit uses? A 2zz swapped MR2-Spyder owner named grumpy has 325 whp on his custom rotrex supercharged setup, of which his rotrex centrifugal supercharger unit is rated up to 400 hp.

[T.O. Exige]

Originally Posted by GTsRasta

Do you know what centrifugal supercharger unit this kit uses? A 2zz swapped MR2-Spyder owner named grumpy has 325 whp on his custom rotrex supercharged setup, of which his rotrex centrifugal supercharger unit is rated up to 400 hp.

The KOMO-TEC kit doesn't come with an aftermarket supercharger, it utilizes the stock Lotus OEM unit. The system is also designed to maintain the factory compression ratio in the combustion chamber and does not incorporate a smaller pulley.

The Rotrex Superchargers looks interesting. Rotrex

[GTsRasta]

0o0o0o my mistake. I thought you were running the kumo-tec centrifugal supercharger kit, and not an upgrade. No wonder you did a comparison pic to the stock IC.

[cpia2002]

Have you taken the car out for a run yet t.o?

check out this link of the video i made of the acceleration

YouTube - Exige s komo-tec 30-115 mph 10 secs!

[probax]

@cpia2002 and T.O. Exige:
As far as I've heared the weakest point for the standard Exige-S after increasing the torque is the clutch. Did you already upgraded this or if not - and this question goes to cpia2002 - did you ever had problems with it.
So I think it also depends how the car is pushed and treated. On a race track I could imagine the standard clutch would not last very long, for normal road driving could be ok.
What's you experience?