[Gorkoracing]

So far I've done the following:
Before

17mm for seat belt

Hex head 6 with some swivel extensions for the seat rail mounting bolts

To get those hex head bolts at an angle

 

[Gorkoracing]

12 or 13mm for the front 2 dr side seat rail bolts

17mm

 

[Gorkoracing]

Last night I tackled the OEM harness bar and rear panel removal. Man that thing was a PITA to get off through the speaker holes. I used a 1/2" drive socket wrench with a reducer to 3/4" and a short 19mm socket. There's not much room to work with there so I put the socket on the bolt head then put the wrench with reducer in through the speaker hole and attached the reducer to the socket and broke the bolt free and gave it a few turns. I couldnt loosen it all the way with the wrench because there wasnt enought clearance so I had to pop the wrench off the reducer and pull it out then used my fingers to turn the reducer/socket to get the bolt the rest of the way out. Did this on both sides. I know some people mentioned cutting down a deepwell socket for this bar but not sure if that would work any better but may try it when i put the bar back on.

removed difflow rear panel delete

felt like a cutter when I was done with that harness bar

Harness bar bolt and lack of room to work

I read before hand to not lose the washer in between the OEM roll loop and the harness bar well when i took it off I noticed mine were taped onto the bar (good idea)

Fuel tank top access

Here is the 10mm bolt on each side that people say is so hard to get to through the speaker holes with the rear panel still on. With it off I was able to do it with ease but even with the rear panel on I cant imagine it being near as difficult as those harness bar bolts. Just chain together some extensions i'd think.

Dr. side 10mm

2 Bolts in engine bay attaching clam on pass side (same on dr. side)

removed battery bracket and battery

So far so good. I've been able to get all the answers I've needed and how to's from LotusTalk. When I get the clam on and start getting the SC on there is where I think I may need assistance from the veterans on here.

 

[evansp60]

The clam kit is a really good idea.
Makes going into the engine bay so much easier.
Since you've got the back coming off already.......

Do you know where you are going to run the water for the intercooler from?

 

[Nessal]

I'm running the same kit with 440 and stock pump and have no issues with fueling. Are you planning to run more boost?

 

[Gorkoracing]

I'm going to have to figure out the water. I may remove the charcoal cannister and use the relocation bracket for it to mount the pump to and find a reservoir to mount there as well?
Anyone else running a water/air intercooler?

Nessal - Yeah I'd like to run a smaller pulley since i'll have it intercooled. Hoping to squeeze some more HP out of it with the 550s/walbro, smaller pulley, and fastworks tune.

Any suggestions on pulley size for my setup? I was thinking a 3.0" RLS pulley

Just purchased connectors for those injectors, supercharger oil, and a cosworth intake manifold gasket

 

[evansp60]

Jack up the car and get under it right up to the fiirewall.
Up against the firewall about midpoint of the car you'll see a metal u-joint
connecting 2 hoses. This is from the rad cooling system. This will
give you access to the rad system. Not sure if it will cool enough for
what you are doing but we use this for cooling our turbo's

 

[Gorkoracing]

Jack up the car and get under it right up to the fiirewall.
Up against the firewall about midpoint of the car you'll see a metal u-joint
connecting 2 hoses. This is from the rad cooling system. This will
give you access to the rad system. Not sure if it will cool enough for
what you are doing but we use this for cooling our turbo's

Excellent info! thanks for the tip and I may go that route. :coolnana:

 

[Westrock]

Wait I'm lost, where is the intercooler your talking about? Did the BWR ones have an intercooler?

 

[Gorkoracing]

Yeah I started looking into that further yesterday and realized that the setup for the BWR kit doesnt allow for an intercooler...Guess I should have looked into that a little more before jumping on this kit. My original plan was to go with an OEM setup. Now I'm trying to decide if I should just put the bwr kit on or possibly sell it and wait for an OEM setup to pop up for sale. As they're both mp62 superchargers I could possibly buy the intake manifold and SC plenum from lotusgarage and build a kit from that but the alternator bracket for the bwr may be different from the oem setup as well.

 

[RichardNHCooper]

Yeah I started looking into that further yesterday and realized that the setup for the BWR kit doesnt allow for an intercooler...Guess I should have looked into that a little more before jumping on this kit. My original plan was to go with an OEM setup. Now I'm trying to decide if I should just put the bwr kit on or possibly sell it and wait for an OEM setup to pop up for sale. As they're both mp62 superchargers I could possibly buy the intake manifold and SC plenum from lotusgarage and build a kit from that but the alternator bracket for the bwr may be different from the oem setup as well.

I had a BWR setup before upgrading. In a word a simple and great improvement over naturally aspirated.

 

[Gorkoracing]

If I were to put on this BWR kit and just sell off the intercooler parts that I'd picked up before buying this kit would it be of any benefit to add the rc550s and larger fuel pump? Would I be able to run a smaller pulley on the BWR kit without an intercooler. Probably more of a question for Phil as I'm sure the Tune will have a lot to do with it. I'm coming from Turbo world where putting an intercooler on a setup was not a big deal. Should have looked at the BWR design a little more closely.

 

[BCspeed34]

If you decide to go that route I have a spare OEM S/C intake manifold and an intercooler with piping.

 

[Westrock]

One possibility would be to look to look at a progressive water/methanol injection kit. It wouldn't be a 100% replacement for an intercooler and you would have to watch the water levels periodically, but they are not terribly expensive and they do have a lot of supporters.

Either way, any supercharger makes a noticeable difference to the way the car drives. Torque is what brings the car to life on daily driving.

 

[Slow_Polk]

Yeah I started looking into that further yesterday and realized that the setup for the BWR kit doesnt allow for an intercooler...Guess I should have looked into that a little more before jumping on this kit. My original plan was to go with an OEM setup. Now I'm trying to decide if I should just put the bwr kit on or possibly sell it and wait for an OEM setup to pop up for sale. As they're both mp62 superchargers I could possibly buy the intake manifold and SC plenum from lotusgarage and build a kit from that but the alternator bracket for the bwr may be different from the oem setup as well. .

You may be able to convert that BWR kit to the stock "S" style pretty easily. The neck of the supercharger appears to be machined to fit a nose bracket and the inlet looks pretty close to the OEM exige design. If those two parts are good you may be able to get away with just purchasing the oem swan neck outlet and the actual manifold that bolts to the head (What BC speed is selling I believe).

Here is list of all the parts that were required for the conversion
http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/1154457-post26.html
There are proly some little items that you would need as well, but the two main components appear to be:
Inlet Neck, Swan B128E0003F
Supercharger Manifold C128E0012F

 

[qu1Z]

Looks like that big Difflow Railer diffuser is being put to good use I see some rash on there.

 

[Gorkoracing]

Looks like that big Difflow Railer diffuser is being put to good use I see some rash on there.

Yessir! Every time i hear it scrape too I cringe a bit and say dammit! lol

I've decided I'm just going to use the BWR kit that i've bought with no intercooler and just sell my intercooler w pump and piping. I won't make as much power but it'll still be very fun to drive from what I've been hearing which is all I really need.


**Now the quesstion is: Do I sell the RC 550's I just bought (are they overkill for this kit?) and just use the 440's that the kit came with or do I use them?

I'm going to go with a fastworks torque300 tune.

I'm going to go ahead use the walbro 255 pump as it'll be added insurance and it was only $80.

I've got a Weapon R header on the way now too. :coolnana:

 

[Gorkoracing]

Took both clams off Saturday. Couldnt really find one for the Exige front so followed an Elise writeup and figured out the rest myself. Header will be here Friday and ordered the torque 300 fw tune and cable this morning. May try and get it put on over the long weekend. Still not sure if I should run the 440 or 550cc injectors and if I can put a slightly smaller pulley on the SC with no intercooler?

nasty

He's always watching

 

[Gorkoracing]

Been a little while since i've updated this as I've been out of town for work and a wedding. I've got everything I'll need except for the Fastworks tune. I may go ahead and start installing everything this weekend though as it's been 3-4 weeks now since i sent in my tune request and I figure I should hear something soon on it. Picked up an AEM wideband o2 guage/sensor to monitor my AFRs.

Also picked up a 3.2" pulley from BWR for my setup. In the special instructions part of the checkout process I put "Please draw a lotus on the box" Here's what showed up lol

I started installing my new weapon-R header last night. so far so good on fitment. I'll finish it up tonight and report back. It looks like they may have changed the design a bit from some pics of older ones i've seen.
Here's the old rusted. Was a pain to take off with that damn tube in the way

Tha new hotness:

Just barely on not bolted together and u pipe not all the way pushed in to get an idea of fitment

Took the old exhaust header bracket off too as it's not used on the new one so why not add lightness

May take the stud out too?

New header gasket and header bolted down and new u-pipe pressed on (not bolted down yet). Fitment looks good so far. I'll put my muffler back on tonight