What happens when you take your Lotus to a garage that does not know what they are doing. This is a picture of a Lotus Elise that was improperly raised on a lift, and flipped backwards. Make sure you follow the directions carefully on jacking points using the picture below. This will also prevent damaging your aluminum tub.
The pioneers called it Hog Island, but it became Honeymoon Isle in 1939 when a New York developer built 50 palm-thatched bungalows for honeymooners. Romantically inclined North Americans were introduced to Honeymoon Island in the early 1940s when magazine ads declared it to be an “undiscovered paradise for newlyweds”.
Today, visitors can drive across Dunedin Causeway to enjoy the sun-drenched Gulf beaches, mangrove swamps, and tidal flats. Nature lovers will find osprey nests, a wide variety of shorebirds, and one of the few remaining virgin slash pine forests in South Florida. The park boasts several nature trails and bird observation areas. Visitors can swim, fish, and snorkel in the warm waters of the Gulf or picnic while they enjoy the beautiful scenery. Shelling is particularly good here, as the Gulf currents deposit an incredible variety of seashells on the shore. Honeymoon Island’s subtropical climate and balmy breeze welcome visitors to relish the native mangrove swamps, salt marshes and sand dunes. With more than 200 species of rare plants, resident osprey and various other endangered shorebirds, this is an ideal eco-tourist escape.
Here is a simple parts list for fixing the Elise shifter flex.
For the Sands mod (first published back in 2006) follow their install instructions / photos included. If you only do one modification, this is the one to do.
Purchased at Ace Hardware: cost $2.19
Bronze bushing
made by Jandorf
part# 90770
I.D 1/2″
O.D 11/16″
L 1 1/8″
Bolt needed: (same tread size as bolts holding down seat, just different length), also get a nice flat washer as well and use lock-tite
Bolt: M8 x 50 / 1.25 pitch
For the Sector 111 mod, i did not drill out the drivers side hole as i did not feel it was needed (and one less hole in the car) I however drilled out the passenger side which was empty and inserted a bolt up from the bottom of the car with a 2″ washer (stainless with silicone) and put a self locking nut on top.
http://sector111.com/images/products…structions.pdf
These updates really make a difference strengthening up the shifter plate.
Those of us that track the car really focus on the handling aspects of the car. By introducing more negative camber (camber is the list of the wheels. Negative is when the tops are closer to each other than the bottoms) we get more contact patch in the corners which gives more grip which improves handling which allows great corner exit speed which means faster speeds down the striaghts which in turn results in faster lap times.
It has the added benefit of increasing tire life for tracked cars because it spreads the wear over the entire surface of the tire rather than allowing the wear to occur mostly on the outside edges.
Socket with an allen head tip on a 3/8 drive ratchet with a longish handle. The rear bolt has to come out all the way and the front can just be loosened when playing around Since the shims have a through hole in the back but a slide out on the front. Loctite is important here when you wrap things up.
Up front my car has one 3 mm thick shim, one 1 mm thick shim and one 1 mm thick shim / ABS bracket. So that is 5 mm of shims. Looks like I should be able to hit in the vicinity of -1.4 to -1.7 maxed out.
Warning: if you are removing shims, make sure to remove each bolt, clean, use medium strength thread locker, and torque to proper settings.
I’ve seen talk of “oh, just loosen the bolts, you only need to remove the rear bolt because the shim is slotted in front.” WRONG! Once a bolt is loosened, the bond of the thread locker has been destroyed. The thread locker must be re-applied after the bolt has been cleaned, and the bolt must be re torqued. Skipping this step is asking for disaster.
There are two variants of the bolts: one was a grade 8.x and the other a grade 9.x. Depending on which bolts you have, the torque requirement is different. Make sure you use the correct torque! This is serious business.
Blue loctite when they refasten!
This is the approximate orientation of the screwdriver that you’ll need to remove/pop loose the front turn signal light:
You can see the light gray tab in the pic below that you’ll have to push on with the screwdriver:
If your having trouble, lay on the ground and look straight up with a flashlight shining up the access hole. You will see the light gray tab and it will help you find what your supposed to be pushing against. Actually, you can see the light assembly begin to move as you apply pressure to the tab.
