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Lotus in the Peak
28th - 30th June 2024

The Mustard Yellow Elise S1 Refresh Thread


Daveb99

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Quick update - I’ve done a few runs out in the car in September, mostly local, I was gutted of course that the trip to Hethel was cancelled, but we will do it next year I’m sure - something to look forward to.

Although the car drives superbly (in my view!), I still haven’t been 100% happy with the front brakes - I could still detect a slight imbalance causing the car to pull slightly to the right still, when braking hard.   I thought I had fixed it with the new crossover pipe but seemingly not.

So I stripped the NSF caliper off the car on Saturday, removed the pads and asked Joanne to press the brake pedal a few times (as if she hasn’t suffered enough!).   Sure enough the inner piston was sticking.   I used a block of wood to hold in the other piston, and then the stuck one just popped out with a couple more presses of the pedal.   So I added more red rubber grease onto the piston and pushed it back in, then checked they both move evenly.

After reassembling and bleeding it was time for a road test - sorted!

Then yesterday I went on the Midland Tick run in it for the first time, and it was flawless, so I think I’ve finally cracked it!

It was a great run, and as 4 of the 6 cars there were yellow, it would have been very rude not to take the opportunity to take these.   I reckon they show the evolution of the Elise platform well, into the S3 Exige, followed by the hairy chested Evora 410 of course 🤣

The S1 isn’t as long as it looks there of course - it’s just distortion at the edge of the photo!

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  • 5 months later...

Well it has been over 8 months since the last update on here so I thought I’d better write something....

After being SORNed for 4 months over winter, I’ve driven it a few times this year and it continues to be a lovely thing in all respects.   Never fails to put a smile on my face, as well sorted S1's always do.

I’ve sourced another set of AWI wheels for it as I’m such a fussy bugger I wanted them in the correct silver, as per OEM.  It’s a much brighter silver and really pops in the sun.  They had already been recently refurbished (wet painted) to an extremely high standard and happen to be absolutely spot on to my eyes.  I may keep my old set to use as spares/for possible track days, not sure yet..

I’ve also changed the exhaust.  The car had an early Eliseparts one fitted and it sounded good.   But I wanted something a little quieter and also one with normal chrome tailpipes, not the polished stainless that I had before.    Don’t you love how, very occasionally, you look in the classifieds and the exact thing you're looking for is sitting there.  It happened with my Probax seats too.  A trip to Bicester later, a full clean and polish, and I now have a lovely Eliseparts Supersport full stainless exhaust, and it’s spot on.  Silencer is 1” larger than my old one so it has ticked all my boxes and sounds great.  Only a couple of years old too.

At the same time I decided to apply some extremely sticky and durable aluminium tape to the exhaust heat shields as they had seen better days.  Not especially difficult and a very inexpensive.

After a couple more MLOC runs this year so far and some local use it's getting close to 118,000 miles now.....

It was raining a little in the afternoon and something happened that was very weird.  The wiper stalk felt like it had snapped and was rattling around, making it almost impossible to operate.   However, it turned out to be a very simple fix indeed - while at a friend's house (thanks again for the lovely Sunday lunch PhilS1!) we removed the housing on the steering column and discovered that the whole stalk unit had somehow popped out of its channel.   I’ve had 5 S1's and never had that happen before.   Slid it back in until it clicked and all was well again.   Very odd.

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It's truly amazing how you have turned that car around from where it was before you had it Dave. In no way does it look like a car with that many miles on it.

Thanks for letting me drive it yesterday, it really brought back to me just how special the S1 is, especially an example as well sorted as yours and equally just how different it is to my Evora. Both great cars but in totally different ways.

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49 minutes ago, Phil S1 said:

It's truly amazing how you have turned that car around from where it was before you had it Dave. In no way does it look like a car with that many miles on it.

Thanks for letting me drive it yesterday, it really brought back to me just how special the S1 is, especially an example as well sorted as yours and equally just how different it is to my Evora. Both great cars but in totally different ways.

Thanks Phil - you’re welcome to have a drive whenever you fancy.   Your Evora is a stunning machine in every way and I’m waiting for you to give me the nod at some point in the future!

Thanks for helping me with the wiper stalk fix too - as we said, has to be the fastest fix we’ve ever done on a Lotus that one!

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