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Lotus has released more details of its upcoming Circuit Car, a dedicated track car based on the Elise 240R (the supercharged version of the Toyota-powered 111R, see this thread for the original concept sketches). See that link for the full press release, or read the entire text in the rest of this post.
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Some would say this comes straight from the horse’s mouth, but since I heard this secondhand (from a very reliable source), we’ll call it a rumor and leave it at that. You know that new Lotus Europa that’s been features on LaDolceVeloce and other car blogs (if not, see these posts: link1, link2, link3)? Well, according to some Lotus employees, those cars are suspension and engine test mules, and are not visually indicative of any real car models to come.

EDIT: Pistonheads has an article discussing this further (link). They speculate that the car in the spy shots is a version of the Elise that will be sold as a Proton (the Malaysian company that owns Lotus).

Today I installed a cold air intake from ForcedFed, a local company specializing in Elise tuning. I won’t go into the instructions here, for that I recommend you read this thread over at EliseTalk. Just one note though, if you install one of these, be sure to orient the MAF correctly. It’s not just a matter of installing it into the tube correctly, the tube itself must be installed right. If the MAF is flipped the car will not run (as I discovered). The MAF connector should be pointed down. The kit is well built; the intake tube is nicely finished in a silver powder paint and provides for secure attachment of the MAF. A K&N filter was included with my kit; one downside is the silicone coupling hose to connect the tube to the throttle body. It’s a bright blue color, which doesn’t really look right in the Elise’s engine compartment. Black would be much better. ForcedFed includes a two piece heat shield to help ensure the filter gets as much cold air as possible rather than breathing in the hot air in the engine compartment. These heat shields are nicely built (and powder painted black), though I found installation to be difficult, mostly due to the cramped space in the Elise. It took a bit of work to get them to fit, it wasn’t very clear at times exactly how they should be arranged. As it is, a coolant hose and two wiring harnesses are pressing firmly against the edges of the sheetmetal heat shields. The edges aren’t sharp (thanks to the powder coat) but this will be something to keep an eye on to watch out for possible wear on the hose.

The results from this intake are amazing. Power gains are questionable, it’s tough to really tell. What really gets you is the noise. The car has a beautiful growl up until 6k rpms, sounds very very nice. At 6k, when the cams changeover, the sound quickly gets even louder, and takes on a different tone. It really is like a whole different engine at that point. Quite addictive, very nice! I highly recommend this mod to all Elise owners. There aren’t many such systems on the market; ForcedFed makes one, another is available over at Sector111.

I have most of the new software up and running. The blog is stable, and the gallery has been fully implemented - it’s used now for storing both images and movies. Please note that most of the internal links in previous posts (pointing to the gallery or downloads sections) have not, and will not, be updated.

Pistonheads reports that the new Lotus Circuit Car (read more about it here) will make its public debut at the Shelsley Walsh Hill Climb August 19th-21st. If any of you readers attend, please take lots of pictures and email them to me!

According to this source, an announcement about the forthcoming Lotus Europa is expected in the next couple of days. Details are still sparse, all we really know is that it’ll be based on the Elise, but be larger, more comfortable, and more ‘practical’ (larger trunk).

Regular readers will notice that EliseInfo.com has underwent a dramatic change! I’ve switched from Postnuke to Wordpress to power the blog. As part of this, I’m having to recreate the gallery and multimedia sections, so that might take a little time to be fully funciontal again. Please bear with me during this change. Once finished, it’ll allow for faster, more frequent site updates.