Engine swap

I started converting Elise's and Exige's to Honda Power a little over 5 years ago. First using the B18C type R engine, and starting two years ago the K20A Type R engine. That's what I have in my Exige at the moment, in fact it was the first JDM K20A imported into the US, engine No. 39.
As for using the K24A in the Elise, as I see it the only worth while component in the K24A is the block itself. Since the K24A is a tractor motor with a 99 mm stroke it has a much taller deck height than the K20A, and therefore will allow us to get a much better rod/stroke ratio using a shorter stroke crank. Being able to rev the engine to 9,000 RPM rather than 6,800 is what this is all about since HP is a function of torque AND RPM.
I offer a very well developed do it yourself conversion kit for the K20A that costs $7,600, and just as soon as my US legal Elise arrives next month I'll be putting a K20A into it so I'll be able to offer a DIY kit for this car as well as the previous Elise, Exige, and 340R models. There are already 3 people in line for the conversion, like me they're just waiting on Lotus.
I also offer a supercharger kit for the K20A that takes the car's performance to yet another level, on par with the most expensive Supercars out there.
A friend of mine is an engineer that works for Toyota, and he tells me I won't have any trouble selling the 2ZZ-GE that came in the car. Lots of them get blown up every week by Celica guys trying to coax a few extra HP out of them.
Take care,
Joe
www.prototyperacing.com

Chris,
Here's the story on the Time Attack, I didn't even know about it until a couple days prior, so I was thrashing like mad to get the car together and out there. In the course of being up for 2 1/2 days and nights I forgot to install the little S/S heat shield I make for the Honda speed sensor. That's what ended it for us, the little plastic bugger melted! No speed sensor signal to the ECU results in a hard rev limit at 4,000 RPM.
The reasons we didn't post a better time are twofold, 1. The driver I chose had never driven the car before, so he was just feeling things out. He was also driving under threat of "you bend it you bought it", so that's another reason he was taking it easy. 2. The car was set up for slicks, so when I found out we had to run street tires I was forced to put the old A-039's on and make a wild-ass guess about alignment, camber, etc. I ended up using settings I got from a friend in Singapore who's a Lotus factory test driver, and from the tire temps we saw those settings were WAY off the mark. We'd just started to make alignment adjustments when the speed sensor melted. Bottom line, doing things at the last minute results in a very short day at the track. I think we got a total of 8 laps in before the day ended for us.
I saw it as being a positive experience, however. Scott Oldham, Editor of Sport Compact Car, asked me if I'd let his photographer take some shots of the car for an upcoming cover [this month's issue], so I got a bit of advertising out of it in the end.
Pretty funny, the cover shot appears as if we're flying through the esses, when in fact the cars were hooked together with my tie-down straps to keep their relative distance constant, and the S2000 was being pulled backward by hand at a snail's pace. VERY long exposure right at Sunset makes it look like we're moving. We must've gone through that back and forth exercise 60 times, and I was nodding off half the time!
We'll be doing an in-depth track test of the Exige, naturally aspirated, head to head against something along the lines of a Z06 Corvette later this month as the first in a series of articles about the K20A Elise conversion. They did two previous articles about Elise's I converted to B18C Power a few years back, so this is the natural progression. The next one will be my car in a supercharged configuration running against something a bit more up-scale. Friend of mine just took delivery of a Carrera GT, so I'll see if he's up for a bit of track time.
As to the on-track reliability of the conversion, I sponsored the first ever K20A Powered Motorsport Elise in last season's BGTC, and that car, using the same components I build for the standard kit, ran perfectly the length of the season with no failure of anything I supplied. He also posted the first ever podium finish from an Elise in British GT history, using a stock JDM K20A engine.
As for the guy with the Sentra, I'm happy for him that he did so well that day, but to be candid I didn't even notice he was there. Hell, Honda CRX's routinely beat Turbo Sentra's at Buttonwillow.
The Exige is in a different league altogether.
Take care,
Joe

I offer a very well developed do it yourself conversion kit for the K20A that costs $7,600, and just as soon as my US legal Elise arrives next month I'll be putting a K20A into it so I'll be able to offer a DIY kit for this car as well as the previous Elise, Exige, and 340R models. There are already 3 people in line for the conversion, like me they're just waiting on Lotus.

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Be very wary of buying a kit from Prototype. The kit is far from well developed going by my own and others experiences with it. The claimed power figures are dubious at best. Every single car tested in the UK has produced significantly less power than Prototype claims. We even went as far as testing on the same Dynopack machine Prototype uses in the States and had Doug Macmillan the headman at Hondata (Honda ECU tuning specialist) working on one car trying to get the claimed figures of 247hp at the hubs. The best obtained was 204hp. My car was recently at the same dyno and made 200hp consistent with what we have seen on the other UK cars.

My car is the only European car not to have broken the header - removal and repair means the rear clam and subframe need to come off, not exactly a five minute job. There are also issues with the heat shield, driveshafts, coolant system, engine mounts and wiring loom.

I put many of the problems down to the fact that the kit was never road and track tested sufficiently during the development program (the S1 Exige is not road legal in the States as you all know).

I have given Prototype an opportunity in the past to address these issues privately, Prototype chose not to respond.

edit: added engine mounts as another issue.

Here we go again!
The first round of attacks on me personally as well as the K20A Elise conversion that I invented came from a moron who has unquestionably the most ghetto K20A conversion on the planet. Ragging on me like he's on PMS from massive estrogen injections, simply because cars tested in England on different dyno's made HP lower than what we saw from my engine on the dyno Hondata uses for all our testing. Pretty much meaningless when you consider that I've NEVER made ANY claim other than that MY engine in MY Exige came up with those numbers on the Dynapack Shawn Church owns and Hondata uses for ECU tuning and development. That guy, John Sweet, was invited to come over here, plane fare paid for, to see for himself, and he backed down at the last minute rather than get slapped in the face with the reality that we know what we're doing over here and he didn't know what the hell he was talking about.
This current round of attack is led by two guys who still owe me money for products I sent them, and after I went WAY beyond the call of duty in helping them out, so they're both on my "no continued support" list as a result. Call me crazy, but I don't bend over and take it from people like this.
The really telling tale, one they never seem to mention, is that all of this crap slinging is being orchestrated by a group of people who have ripped ME off, and are producing a K20A conversion in England after signing a legally binding non disclosure and non competition agreement with my Corporation. Making money off of something they're producing illegally is their No. 1 motivation, and since they're liars and thieves to begin with, anything they say has to be taken with a TON of salt.
Ian Wilson, who is a self proclaimed mechanical moron, was offered a sweet deal by Simon Scuffham and Andy Marsh under the stipulation he'd make a point of coming out against me publically, so he's just paying his toll here.
Paul Golding [aka Calypso Elise] is a guy who told me point blank on the phone, "Don't trust me, and don't trust Andy Marsh at Maidstone" I guess I should've paid more attention to his warning, since he's playing a major role in this smear campaign. He's also a marketing stroke, PR guy, professional liar, manipulator, and whatever else you can think of where it comes to people who make their living as part of the propaganda machine. He's also the head of the Seloc forum, which just seems like a natural for someone of that bent.
Yes, I've just sold my house, which I've owned for 28 years. Investing that money in this endeavor, rather than buying another house might give you an idea of how dedicated I am to making the Elise the most affordable Supercar on Earth. Part of that money is going into a new US Elise, which will naturally be receiving it's dose of superior K20A Honda Power just as soon as it finally arrives at Symbolic Motors in La Jolla. I drove one of the Elise's I just recently converted to supercharged K20A Power down to Symbolic to give Nick Smith a test ride, and upon returning afterwards when questioned by one of his best customers, he stated flatly, "It's faster than your Murcielago"! Seems like a fairly good testimonial from a guy who knows cars and wants one outfitted this way himself. On the issue of good customer satisfaction, that particular Elise was converted to B18C Honda Power by me about 4 years ago, and as often happens, the owner got used to that level of performance and wanted more, so he shipped his car from Georgia to California to have me do the second conversion to supercharged K20A Power. He's got nothing but, "Wow, this thing is REALLY fast", and a load of other positive comments to say in communications we've had recently, and since he lives in Georgia I'm sure the boys at Lotus USA will be getting a taste of what the Elise should be pretty soon.
In closing I just want to make it clear that I have all the time in the world for good people, as anyone who knows me will tell you, but I don't waste my time on people who screw me over or stab me in the back. In this particular instance that list includes Ian Wilson, Paul Golding, Andy Marsh, Bill Bird, John Sweet, Jonny Leroux, Rich Breland, Simon Scuffham, and I'm sure a few who are involved I'm not even aware of yet. Eight or more against one seems like pretty fair odds, considering the fact that I'm the guy who has spent the past 5 1/2 years developing Honda-Elise engine conversions, and the others are a bunch of know-nothing's of questionable character and motivation. So let them rant and rave and tell all the lies they want, I've got work to do.
Take care,
Joe McCarthy
Prototype Racing Inc.
Torrance, California

Oh boy where do you start with that lot? Ever wondered why you have gathered such a long and growing list of detractors?

I also note you didn't address a single point about the quality of your kit, or your other customers who have received nothing despite paying large deposits!

As I understand you believe I owe you money for the oil take off. Well I fail to understand why everyone else got this included in their kit at no extra cost. While we are at it - you can send me the parts you stripped off my engine, the water oil cooler, wiring loom holder and induction cover. Or better yet keep them and we'll call it quits.

I make no claims to being a professional engineer, but you on the other hand do. Judging by the number of problems with your kit I would suggest it's you who should be wearing the moron label. Anyway I'm not going to drop to your level of personal mud slinging. I prefer to deal with the facts. So why won't you answer any of the issues raised? Let me spell them out.

Headers break, the coolant system is just plain wrong. The wiring loom is a mess. The RH engine mount is wrong (mine has been replaced along with Bill's). Driveshafts are to long. Doesn't leave much except the engine and fortunately that's made by Honda. And finally you have customers in Europe who have been waiting a very very long time to see anything for their money.

Pretty much meaningless when you consider that I've NEVER made ANY claim other than that MY engine in MY Exige came up with those numbers on the Dynapack Shawn Church owns and Hondata uses for ECU tuning and development.

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You’re selling a product based on these numbers. Are you now saying we should settle for 25% less power? Despite having run my car and Paul's on the same Dynapack machine with the exact same ECU, header etc we have consistently produced 25% less power than you. As an engineer I’d like to hear a better explanation than your last one – which was something along the lines of someone must have stolen the JDM cams :clap:. Statistically the evidence all points to Shawn’s dynapack being out not Abbey’s or Emerald’s.

I’m not getting any deal from Maidstone. The car just got a new header fitted because as you know yours keeps breaking and requires the removal of the rear clam and subframe to get it off. The only reason I could afford it was because I have a buyer for my old header – valuable piece of property the only one of its kind in Europe that hasn’t snapped. The new header bolts straight on, doesn’t turn the head and rocker cover into a hot plate (not to mention the boot). Unless they were doing it for free there is no deal on this earth they could offer me if I was happy with the quality of your kit. Unfortunately for me, I also needed new engine mounts partly to get the alternator out of the firewall and partly because the your RH mount was self destructing (same as on Bill’s car). New driveshaft’s as well since both my outer CV joints gave up last week and I figured it was cheaper to replace them now with the car apart since there are question marks about yours. Unfortunately I don’t have a spare house to sell at the moment to finance my folly. But I do have a box of Prototype parts that perhaps you'd like to make me an offer on.

The sad part of this is you could have had the UK market wrapped up by now. None of the UK dealers tried to rip you off - they just found you impossible to deal with. As you already know the Blink and Maidstone kits both developed by Simon bear absolutely no resemblance to your kit.

So let them rant and rave and tell all the lies they want, I've got work to do.

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Time for a reality check the only one ranting is you. If you dealt with the facts instead of making up conspiracy theories you wouldn't be in this mess.