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Lotus 'did' very little with the K-series in the Elise. It's too expensive for them to do direct engine development. (witness the Esprit engine, which is something like $20K new in a crate...)
Most of the engines used in the road cars simply came/come from MG-Rover directly and were totally un-modified by Lotus.
The 118HP and 145HP VVC engine in the S1, as well as the 122HP and 160HP VVC engine in the S2 come directly from Rover 'as is', including gearbox.
Only thing they did on the S2 was use their own (re-badged 'EFi') ECU instead of the Rover MEMS ECU.
Only exceptions to this were the S1/S2 135 and S1 Sport160 models which were basic 118Hp engines that got some mild head work and different cams to bring up the HP.
The 190HP engines are so-called 'VHPD' versions that are sold by MG-Rover, but these are more track-oriented and can usually only just barely pass the emission requirements for road use. (actually the official road version of the Exige produced 177HP and the 'track upgrade' brought that to 190HP)
I don't really expect any major changes to the Toyota engine from Lotus themselves. Law of diminishing returns and all that...
I can imagine that they will do some tweaks on the camshafts and ECU in a while to perhaps make the power delivery more linear (make the 'switch' in cams less obvious) and perhaps increase the output to a little over 200HP.
But as with most mods in this respect they will probably label them 'track only', so will not guarantee emission compliance or road-worthyness and such.
Bye, Arno.
Most of the engines used in the road cars simply came/come from MG-Rover directly and were totally un-modified by Lotus.
The 118HP and 145HP VVC engine in the S1, as well as the 122HP and 160HP VVC engine in the S2 come directly from Rover 'as is', including gearbox.
Only thing they did on the S2 was use their own (re-badged 'EFi') ECU instead of the Rover MEMS ECU.
Only exceptions to this were the S1/S2 135 and S1 Sport160 models which were basic 118Hp engines that got some mild head work and different cams to bring up the HP.
The 190HP engines are so-called 'VHPD' versions that are sold by MG-Rover, but these are more track-oriented and can usually only just barely pass the emission requirements for road use. (actually the official road version of the Exige produced 177HP and the 'track upgrade' brought that to 190HP)
I don't really expect any major changes to the Toyota engine from Lotus themselves. Law of diminishing returns and all that...
I can imagine that they will do some tweaks on the camshafts and ECU in a while to perhaps make the power delivery more linear (make the 'switch' in cams less obvious) and perhaps increase the output to a little over 200HP.
But as with most mods in this respect they will probably label them 'track only', so will not guarantee emission compliance or road-worthyness and such.
Bye, Arno.
