A client brought his supercharged Lotus Elise to us for mapping after having had unsuccessful attempts at having “generic” tuning files downloaded to his ECU by another firm.

The client reported poor performance, poor drivability and a generally unpleasant road manners. The problem with generic tuning files is that they are done remotely (the tuner buys them from someone else – often in a different country) and are therefore more often than not sub-optimal if not potentially harmful to the engine.

Our first dyno run produced the grey power and torque curves shown above, and the AFR trace showed a dangerously lean condition.

We installed a PiP ECU which is a great piece of kit being a true “plug and play” solution offering complete control over all dynamic engine parameters, and also features an adjustable traction control facility.

Following installation and careful mapping we were able to produce the red power and black torque curves shown above. Drivability and road manners were also dramatically improved.

The PiP ECU can be reviewed and purchased here.

A full installation blog on another car can be seen here.

Developed by Simply Sports Cars in Australia, the Harrop TVS 1320 supercharger is based on Eaton’s new Twin Vortices Series ( TVS ™ ) featuring twin intermeshing four-lobe rotors, twisted in a helix angle of 160° to achieve high thermal efficiency. The kit includes the SSC precision cast SC outlet manifold especially developed this Exige upgrade application. The SSC / Harrop supercharger includes a special drive snout and pulley and is assembled by Harrop Engineering for SSC.

The upgrade kit provides a significant power and torque increase over the standard set-up. All components / hardware required to upgrade your car to this system are included in the kit.

To review and purchase the SSC supercharger upgrade kit, please follow this link.

EP Tuning is building a Time Attack Exige with some very interesting technology which we have high hopes for.

You can follow their build blog progress here.

Please let us know if you need any technical assistance with your project.

Kent based Lotus specialist Maidstone Sports Cars has enlisted our help with their latest ground breaking endeavors; the Exige Super 200 project.

No stranger to interesting and race winning cars, Maidstone Sports Cars is building this Lotus in order to be the first Exige to exceed 200 MPH!

We’ve acted as Technical Partner for many of their previous projects and clients vehicles, and we’re very excited to be included in the Super 200 project.

Andy Marsh of Maidstone Sports Cars commented: “Maidstone Sports Cars has been using Torque Developments International as a technical partner for over 6 years and have been more than satisfied with the technical expertise and professionalism offered by TDI during this period.

Maidstone Sports Cars will continue to use Torque Developments International for the foreseeable future while they continue to help us deliver cost effective and successful results to our clients time after time.”

You can keep up to date with this project by following their blog and Facebook page.

Anyone running a Ford Duratec engine hard will probably have experienced alternator issues at some point. It’s particularly a problem for endurance racing cars and has been known to be the cause of many aborted races.

This alternator upgrade kit from Cosworth deals with issue, and comprises of a 40 amp racing alternator, revised tensioner, water pump pulley, mounting brackets and hardware, and a drive belt.

It’s available now at a very reasonable £504.88 plus vat.

You can review and purchase the Cosworth uprated alternator kit here.

The achilles heel of the Elise/Exige S2 Tyoyota 2ZZ powertrain is the C60 transmission; specifically 3rd and 4th gears being the cause of much frustration on race and road cars alike!

Simply Sports Cars have addressed this issue with their uprated gear kits which are a thicker helical cut for added strength, and feature altered torque vectoring to reduce the internal loadings which contribute to premature failure.

This kit will cope with up to 400Nm so can be viewed as a “value add” to your pleasure, and has slightly longer ratios to reduce the gap between 4th and 5th gears and provide a slightly higher top speed to further enhance your driving experience.

Consider the SSC gear kit to be an essential purchase for heavy duty applications.

Being the exclusive European distributor for SSC, we are pleased to offer you this kit which can be can be reviewed and purchased here