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The March 2006 issue of Sports Car International (a GREAT magazine, if you haven’t already checked it out) has a review of the new Lotus Exige. I learned one thing new by reading it, Exige is French for ‘demanding’! How appropriate. You can read the whole article here or read the rest of this post to see it copied there (though you’ll have to follow the link above to see the pictures at SCI’s website).
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The Jan/Feb 2006 issue of SPEED magazine (from Road and Track) has a comparison of the Lotus Exige and the Porsche Cayman S. It’s a decent comparison, as the cars have a similar purpose, though the Porsche costs around 50% more than the Exige. I’ve uploaded the scans (courtesy of EliseTalk) to the gallery here.

Edmunds has posted a full road test of the Lotus Elise on its website. I like the opening line, “This may be the best car in the world - if all you need it to do is stay ahead of whatever’s chasing it.” Nicely put. The Elise is fast, real fast, and handles great…but is lacking in the non-driving areas like creature comforts. Read the full review over at Edmunds.

The Litchfield County Times has a nice review of the Lotus Exige, with such great quotes as, “The car’s exterior design is stunning and resembles a big cat preparing to pounce upon unwary prey.” Read the whole story at the link above, or just see the rest of this post.
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I had a blast today at the Club111/GGLC autocross in Marina (California). The course was a blast, and by the end of the day I was nailing most sections. The only area that gave me trouble was the very, very narrow box-like slalom section. There was no margin for error there, it was either nail it and get a good time, or get a bad time from either going too slow or hitting a cone. Very little in-between. The long sweeper around corner station 3 was great, it was plenty of time to get the car settled and finesse the balance using subtle throttle inputs. Lotus really did a fantastic job with this car, an average enthusiast like myself is able to get in it and make it glide through the corners, getting one of the best times of the day. Thanks, Lotus, for a job well done! (a few pictures from the day can be found here). EDIT: the results are final, and I managed to get the best Elise time of the day in my base-suspension Elise, beating several Elises equipped with the sport suspension and A048 tires!

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.